


The Door

by Blue Sonnet (Nana_41175)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anal Sex, Canadian!Erwin, Frottage, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Reincarnation AU, Rimming, Sex Toys, Sixty-nine, Voyeurism, Zanzibar as actual setting, also Architect!Erwin, issues of cheating and unfaithfulness, modern day AU, morning after talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-29 10:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8485078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nana_41175/pseuds/Blue%20Sonnet
Summary: Erwin loves the beautiful antique doors of Zanzibar. There is one that he is particularly drawn to, along with the person who emerges from it one day…





	1. Part I: Erwin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlumpPushu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumpPushu/gifts).



> I love the doors of old Stone Town, Zanzibar (part of Tanzania) and I do hope to be able to see them in person some day! I can imagine Erwin falling in love with them as well, along with a certain person he spots coming out of one of them one day…

                                                       

Erwin loves Zanzibar. He’s been here about a dozen times. The pull of the place is inexplicable. He just knew he’d fallen in love with it the very first time he arrived there on a family holiday when he was sixteen. In particular, he’d fallen hard for the huge antique doors of Stone Town– exotic, marvelous, mysterious. He’s been all over the world, and nowhere has any set of doors triggered such an instant and lasting fascination as the superb doors of Zanzibar. He’s taken loads of pictures of every single door, old and new, that he has ever encountered. The wonder never wears off. Behind every door is a secret world that is sealed off from the outside, holding untold riches, of private people living out their quiet lives-– the stories of another world apart from his that Erwin can only dream about.

He’s got a favorite one: it is older than most, located in an ancient quarter of the town. The wood has faded but the carvings are still gorgeous. It is so full of character that he stops by this one every time he is in Stone Town. He pays homage to it by taking photograph after photograph, at every conceivable angle and various times of the day, and then he just stands there for several minutes more, marveling at the workmanship, the way it has aged since he was last in town.

Today it stands before him again, after two years, and Erwin feels the same old exhilaration, an odd familiarity, as though he is face to face again with an old friend that he misses very much. Smiling, he lifts his phone to take a snap, but before he can do so, half of the gigantic door suddenly opens, briefly revealing a dark, cavernous interior, and out steps a slight young man with short dark hair, clad in loose summer clothes.

He is as exquisite as the door he has emerged from, and for a moment, Erwin can only stand there, blinking in surprise. Their eyes meet–- one pair as blue as the sea that surrounds the islands and wide with surprise, and another pair of slanting dark ones, heavy lidded and languid-- and Erwin feels a jolt, as though a live current has just run through him.

 _He is so beautiful_ , Erwin cannot help but think, and just as he is debating about taking a snap of the gorgeous young man by his beautiful door–- what if the man will take offense and think him  _rude?_ –- the man severs eye contact and swings the door shut with a curt movement. He starts walking down the narrow alley, away from Erwin.

His heart sinking, Erwin merely stands there and watches him go.  He opens his mouth and shuts it again. He feels like calling out to the man but what is he supposed to say?

A few steps down, the man suddenly stops and turns back to glance at Erwin, and Erwin can feel his heart in his throat when the young man says to him in English, “I remember you."

Erwin swallows around the lump that has formed in his throat. "I'm sorry?" he says, and mentally kicks himself. Is that all he can think to say? 

It is not everyday that Erwin is rendered speechless, but he is now. Everything about this newcomer is a surprise-- his stunning looks, the way he is suddenly talking to Erwin, and in English (although Erwin does not know why this is surprising, as most people in Zanzibar-- a former British protectorate-- are conversant in English.)

The young man says, "you’ve gawked at my door for years. I think you’ve got some questions.”

It is not a query, and it is delivered calmly in a voice as cool as the breezes that stir through the trees, carrying with them the heavy fragrance of frangipani.

Erwin opens his dry mouth to speak and for a moment it is difficult for him to get a word out. “I…where are you going?”

“The market,” says the young man. For some reason, Erwin cannot bring himself to call him a stranger. “I’ve got lunch to think about.”

“Would you mind if I come with you?”

The man studies him for a moment with those inscrutable dark eyes and, shrugging, turns away to continue walking down the alley.

 _Good enough_ , Erwin thinks. His heart leaping with gladness, he jogs to catch up with the man.

"My name is Erwin," he says, smiling. "What's yours?"

The young man glances at him and looks away again. "Levi," he merely says.


	2. Chapter 2

Erwin knows without being told that they are headed for Darajani Bazaar, the main market in Stone Town, but he is too busy being enthralled by his new acquaintance to really notice where they are going.

“Levi,” he says, sounding charmed by the young man’s name, because he is. “It’s good to meet you, at last.”

Levi gives him one of those brief, inscrutable glances from the corner of his eye and says, “why do you keep returning to my door?”

Erwin grins. “It’s my favorite among all the doors here,” he replies.

“Why?”

Erwin has been trying to work that one out for years himself. “It just is,” he says, shrugging.

They pass by two women, olive-skinned, their heads covered by brightly patterned scarves, and Erwin can feel their gaze linger on him for a moment or two. He senses that Levi is aware of the way the women are looking at him as well but Erwin doesn’t mind, really. He’s used to women (and quite a few men) looking at him since he turned seventeen, the year he shot to his full height of six feet one.

Levi is saying something about other doors on the island being far more interesting, but Erwin only half listens as he gazes down at the smaller man walking beside him. He still cannot quite shake off his astonishment.

He is so petite, Erwin cannot help but think, and so delicately beautiful. Compared to the other islanders, Levi is pale like a plant that has not been under the sun very much, which Erwin finds strange. Indeed, he looks like one of those exquisite dolls made by master Japanese artisans from a continent away.

_What is he doing here, in Zanzibar of all places?_

Erwin comes back from his short reverie to find Levi’s eyes on him, his gaze searching. Clearly, he is expecting an answer from him and Erwin scrambles around for a suitable reply, only he did not hear Levi’s query. Smiling, he resorts to his usual line: “Sorry, I…”

Levi obliges. “I said, do you believe in Fate?”

The odd question catches Erwin off guard. “Well, I… can’t really say I do.”

Levi looks away. “You don’t believe in past lives— all that shit.”

Erwin laughs, wondering if that is a trick question, or just something that people living in this part of the world believe in; one of their local superstitions. “Well, I certainly don’t remember mine.” He pauses before he quips, “though I wouldn’t mind having lived inside a house such as yours, with that kind of gorgeous door, in my previous life.”

More than anything, it was meant to elicit a laugh from his companion, yet it was also— if Erwin will be honest with himself— an oblique (and quite unsubtle) attempt to fish for an invitation into Levi’s house; but Levi merely looks away from him and mutters, “good for you, then.”

Erwin is not sure what Levi means by it. He is not even sure he heard right, but that is how it sounded to him.

Refusing to be derailed so easily, he asks, “have you lived there long?”

“I was born in that house.”

“Oh.” Again, Erwin does not know why it comes as a surprise. Zanzibar _was_ a British protectorate, after all, and is home to people of various ethnicities. Only, he feels— and he does not understand why he does so— that Levi belongs rightfully in another place, perhaps even in another time.

It is pure whimsy, and Erwin tries to shake it off. What is the matter with him?

But then, it is not every day that he gets to meet the owner of the one door in the world that he has long coveted entry into.

They arrive at the market and for a while, it is impossible to carry on a conversation, so great is the din of the place and so distracting are the people and the myriad, colorful wares on sale. Erwin has been here before but, as always, he lets the vibrant scenes cast their spell on him.

He stands there in his light-colored cotton shirt and shorts— just another foreign tourist in a sea of people— taking pics with his phone and soaking in the local color. He watches as Levi, speaking fluent Swahili, buys rice, spices, vegetables and, finally, some fish. Levi shakes his head at him when he offers to help carry some of the packages. The talk on the way back is more general, involving the scenic spots of the island, all of which Erwin knows like the back of his hand.

Yet for all his enthusiasm, talk trickles down to nothing as they finally approach Levi’s door, and for a moment, Erwin is afraid that this is it— he has reached the end of the line. After a few more polite words and a brief farewell, Levi is going to shut his beautiful door on Erwin’s face and disappear into the cool, secret interior of his house and his life, and that is the last that Erwin will ever get to see of him.

He hangs back for a moment as Levi fishes out his keys. He feels suddenly, almost laughably, awkward as he tries to figure out the best way to convey to Levi his desire to have a look— just a peek, really— beyond the door he has worshiped for so long.

He does not think he can bear to be sent away. 

“I suppose you’ll want some lunch,” Levi says abruptly without turning his head to look at him.

Erwin’s eyes widen and he has to hold back from the instant apology that is already on the tip of his tongue. There is such a thing as overdoing it, he knows, among strangers. He collects himself quickly and grins. “Thanks,” he says, as though he were expecting it all along. “Lunch would be lovely.”

Levi pushes the door open and enters, and Erwin almost cannot believe it as he reaches out reverently to touch the aged wood that he knows so well, and then he is stepping through the door and into Levi’s private sanctum.

* * *

**Author's Notes** : [Darajani Bazaar ](https://migrationology.com/darajani-market-stone-town-zanzibar/)is a real place in Stone Town, known for its colorful stalls selling everything from spices, fruit and vegetables, seafood and live chickens to cell phones and fabrics:

    

* * *

 

[Here's](http://blue-sonnet.tumblr.com/post/153033616093/teaser-for-chapter-3-of-the-door-eruri) the teaser for the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

“I’ll leave you to it if you’re just going to stand there all day,” says Levi dryly, and Erwin realizes he has been ogling the interior of the door for more than a few minutes.

He turns to Levi, smiling. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m an architect, you see, so I find these things rather interesting.”

In the shadows of the hallway, he picks up a small movement from Levi— a twitch of the head, as if in surprise— but Levi says nothing and Erwin turns his attention back to the door.

Looking at it from here, protected from the natural elements outside, Erwin can see the full grandeur of the old teak door, filled with intricate carvings. Definitely, they don’t make these anymore. He runs a marveling hand over the texture of the fine wood, awed at the combination of Indian and Arabic designs that flows through each line and curve of the engravings.

A few seconds pass and Levi huffs softly behind him. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” he says.

Erwin turns to speak to him, but Levi is gone, having slipped away like a shadow.

For a moment, Erwin merely stands there and looks around uncertainly. There is a small flight of stairs a few feet away that leads to the upper floor and ahead of him is the rest of the shadowed hall which opens up to a small, tiled central courtyard that also serves as a garden. Erwin crosses it and enters the living quarters on the first floor, with their arched openings and high ceilings.

It is instantly clear that Levi’s house is as old and rare as its grand door, an interior designer’s dream come true. Erwin runs light fingertips along the wall and feels the special texture of coral stone— the traditional building material of Zanzibar dwellings and the reason behind the name Stone Town. Looking into the living room more closely, it becomes apparent to Erwin that the house has seen better days, although Levi keeps the room spotless and the antique furniture immaculate, with red and black carpets of African design on the floor to enliven the starkness of the whitewashed walls. Needless to say, Erwin is delighted.

                                                 

The kitchen is at the back of the house, and he finds Levi there, preparing lunch. Unlike the other parts of the house, this room has all the modern amenities: a refrigerator and electric stove, stainless steel utensils, even an automatic rice cooker.

“You won’t find anything interesting here,” says Levi, who does not appear to be in a talkative mood as he concentrates on his cooking.

After one or two attempts at conversation, with Levi’s answers coming back in grunts and a shrug of the shoulder, Erwin politely excuses himself to resume exploring and he is surprised that Levi readily gives his assent.

“I promise I won’t touch anything,” he says jokingly, but Levi merely turns away.

“You won’t find anything worth stealing, anyway.”

Erwin chuckles. “That’s definitely not true,” he says as he drifts away on his quest to discover the treasures that await him in other parts of the house.

In the coming days and weeks, he will go back again and again to these few, precious hours and wonder why he never bothered to examine his own feelings more closely; why it never occurred to him that he would feel the way he did as he stepped into a complete stranger’s abode in a faraway country with an ease of mind and a deep sense of comfort and familiarity that should only ever occur to one in one’s own home.

Indeed, Erwin walks back across the foyer of Levi’s house with sure and firm steps, as if he is walking across his own living room. He reaches the flight of stairs that leads to the second floor, spacious enough to accommodate another family or two but delegated now to storage. As old houses go, this one has accumulated a lot of things over the years. Erwin spends considerable time inspecting the furniture, ornaments and knickknacks that once attended the daily life of this household— some of them dilapidated and broken, some still in good condition but not needed downstairs, all of them too precious to be thrown away, and all of them extremely appealing to the architect in Erwin.

Ah, but wait. Here, also on the second floor, is a window alcove carved into the thick coral stone of the wall where one may get to sit and idle the day away. Erwin studies the intricate design of the wrought iron grill that screens the window from the view of outsiders and realizes that the window overlooks the narrow street below.

From his vantage point, he can see the people coming and going by Levi’s front door and he suddenly remembers Levi’s words.

_I remember you._

Just how many times over the years has Levi seen him take a picture of the door downstairs while Levi was tucked away up here, unseen from below? Erwin remembers looking up to this very window every now and then in the course of his excursions. He never saw anyone in the darkness beyond the iron grill. Nevertheless, he always made it a point to smile at its direction as way of thanks.

Standing here now, on the other side from where he once stood, Erwin feels the first brush of an odd, unknown feeling at the thought that _somebody_ has been there all along to see him take his pictures, and to see him look up and smile.

_Levi…_

Downstairs again. He is about to head back to the kitchen when he is arrested by the sight of a narrow corridor just off the living room. He nearly missed it.

He slows down as he reaches the end of the corridor, with its single door, only partially closed. Erwin thinks he knows what this room is and a part of him is shouting a warning to remove himself as quickly as possible from there; that it’s rude to look into Levi’s private quarters. Yet Erwin’s hand seems to have a life of its own as it reaches up to gently push the door further open.

Sure enough, it is a bedroom, with windows opening to the central courtyard. Like the living room, it is simple but beautifully furnished with an antique bed made of dark wood, with pristine white sheets and curtained by a canopy of mosquito netting. Around the room are cabinets and a small bedside table made from the same dark wood as the bed while a ceiling fan stands motionless overhead. Black and white tiles line the floor where it is not covered by a thin, woven carpet.

                                                                      

The overall atmosphere of the room is one of peace and quiet repose, and standing there, Erwin feels once again that brush of unknown emotion— a pulse of awareness that seems to resonate from his heart to send a small shiver down his spine.

“It used to be my mother’s room,” says a voice from the corridor, and Erwin whips around, feeling his face flush and his heart beat madly in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he says almost automatically. “I should not have—it’s rude, I know…”

Levi does not appear to be offended. “You say sorry a lot,” he merely says as he tilts his head a little, studying Erwin calmly. “I’m guessing you’re Canadian.”

Erwin laughs ruefully. “Am I really that obvious?”

For a moment, Levi looks as though he is about to say something more, but then he says, “lunch is ready.”

They sit down to a simple lunch of fish curry rice and vegetables, and Erwin can honestly say he’s not tasted anything so good for a long while.

They talk a bit about everything and nothing. Erwin is curious with all sorts of things about Levi, but he does not want to scare him away, or to make him fold into himself. There is something in the studied stillness about him that suggests unease, even wariness, yet Levi has thought to invite him in for lunch and to let him explore his house unsupervised.

 _There is something there,_ Erwin thinks. He tries to gently draw him out of his shell, but while Levi has readily answered his many questions about the house and its history ("It was built by a slave trader-- who else could readily afford such a door at that time? It passed into the hands of a merchant family a few decades later."), and all the technical details, he gives almost nothing away about himself and the things that Erwin wants to know the most.

The meal draws to an end without Erwin being the wiser regarding his host and he finds himself getting a bit desperate to hang on to Levi’s company. He does not like not knowing, and Erwin can sense that there is something— a mystery— lurking behind those half-lidded, opaque gray eyes that needs solving.

“Where are you off to after lunch?” Levi asks and it is clear to Erwin that Levi is beginning the process of dismissing him.

Suddenly reckless, he pushes out an invitation of his own: “I was thinking of taking a walk around the seafront. Would you care to join me?”

Levi leans back in his chair, his gaze cool as he studies Erwin. “I’ve got to meet someone in the afternoon,” he says.

“Oh.” Erwin feels his features fall together with his shoulders. He is not expecting that at all. Stupid. “Of course. I…of course.”

Everything is awkward again between them.

Erwin thanks Levi for lunch and offers to help with the dishes but Levi only waves him off. He stands there, feeling quite foolish as he actively contemplates a proposal of buying Levi’s time for the afternoon. It is rude and presumptuous, yes, but he can’t quite think of anything else, under the circumstances, and what else has he got to lose? He can’t just let it go without a shot.

“Would you happen to know anyone who can take me around for the afternoon?” he asks, quickly before he loses his nerve.

The movement of Levi’s hands slow under the stream of water. He does not look at Erwin when he says, “I don’t think you’ll have any problems touring the seafront by yourself. Everything’s in English, anyway.”

“Yes, but it would be nice to hear things from a guide who knows all the local stories,” Erwin says earnestly. “I’d really appreciate it if you happen to know anyone. I’ll make it worth their while.”

Levi sets aside the last plate and wipes his hands on a towel as he turns around to survey Erwin with a flat expression. He gets it. Erwin can tell that he is not fooled, not even for a minute. Nevertheless, Erwin hangs on to his line, lame as it is. He returns Levi’s look with a bland smile, his blue eyes wide and guileless.

Finally, Levi lets out a soft _tch_ under his breath, and Erwin thinks he sees the corners of that down-turned mouth twitch up in an almost-smile as he looks away. “I suppose I can cancel my meeting for the afternoon.”

Erwin beams.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** The images are lifted from several Zanzibar hotels-- just to give us a clue about the interior of Levi's house. I had to resist taking the pics of the more opulent rooms, ehehe.

Levi is not exaggerating when he says his house was built by a slave trader. Zanzibar's history was intricately tied to the Arab slave trade that flourished from the 18th to 19th centuries, along with the spice trade. More on this in the next chapter.

* * *

Here is the [teaser](http://blue-sonnet.tumblr.com/post/153082690198/gorgeous-eruri-nsfw-by-%E8%8B%BA%E9%87%8E%E3%82%81%E3%82%8A%E3%83%BC-posted-with-very) for the next chapter! XD XD XD


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes:** The pretty pictures are taken from various sources online, and from Wikipedia. I do not own them. Gorgeous fanart by Maino Merry is used with kind permission.

* * *

They start their tour right beside the market, with the old Anglican cathedral of Christ Church. It is a unique structure, built at the end of the 19th century by the third bishop of Zanzibar to celebrate the end of slavery on the island. Levi tells Erwin that no one had expected the church’s curious design to withstand the test of time, but it did. It is situated right where the old slave market was, says Levi, with the altar placed on the exact spot where the main whipping post used to be.

They stop by the monument to the slaves beside the cathedral, with five human beings, chained together, standing in a pit. Erwin has been here before, several times, and the sight of those stone slaves— a silent but eloquent reminder of the brutal history of the Arab slave trade of which Zanzibar was a hub— cannot fail to move him every time he comes to visit.

                                                   

Erwin tells Levi this, and he gets a solemn response from his guide. “Since when,” asks Levi, “has mankind ever been humane? Strip us of the superficial veneer of civilization and deep down inside, we are still the greedy, savage creatures we have always been. To compare ourselves to animals would be to insult them. There is nothing quite like us in this world. We are a plague.”

Erwin is struck by the words, spoken in that cool, low voice, even as he realizes that they carry a fundamental truth; but Levi is already moving on. He stops several feet away from Erwin and turns back inquiringly to him. “Coming?” he says.

      

(Above: panoramic view of Stone Town's seafront. Left to Right: The Old Dispensary by day and night; The House of Wonders; the old Fort)

They move on to happier sights. The seafront of Stone Town hosts a series of attractions— quaint buildings such as the recently renovated and gorgeous Old Dispensary, and the aptly named House of Wonders. There is also an old fort, and the former sultan’s residence, now called the Palace Museum, richly detailing the daily life of the Zanzibari royal family, and holding the belongings of a former princess who eloped with her German husband to live in Europe. It was a right scandal that shook Zanzibar at the time, before the cholera epidemics and the bloody political unrest that swept the islands in the 19th century.

Just before all of that, there was a tale that the disaster was foretold by the eerie sound of ghostly drums being struck by the unseen hands of evil spirits, deep in the bowels of Dunga palace, which now lie in ruins on the other side of the island. Stories abound about how Dunga palace was built with slaves interred alive in its walls, to bring good fortune. It seems that every corner of Zanzibar is filled with its own ghosts, and sometimes even malevolent demons, or _sheitani._

Standing there, listening to the absorbing stories of a well-loved place that only an insider can ever know is something of a gift to Erwin, and he allows himself to be swept along by the narrative, and the smooth cadences of Levi’s voice. The day passes by without them being aware of it, and soon it is evening.

They make their way to the bustling night market at Forodhani Gardens, which are brimming with food stalls. Levi has earlier refused to be paid by Erwin for taking him around, but he accepts Erwin’s offer to buy him dinner.

Together, they order skewered meats, freshly grilled, along with more exotic fare such as octopus boiled in coconut milk and curry, seasoned with cardamom, garlic and lime juice. And beer, ice cold and lots of it. Erwin drinks it straight from the bottle while Levi pours his into a paper cup. All the while they talk, seated in plastic chairs around a small, portable table, in the middle of a huge, chattering crowd of locals and tourists enjoying the cool night air by the seaside, redolent of roasting meats and throbbing with the loud strains of a local band.

                  

Erwin has not enjoyed himself so much for a long time.

They talk, sometimes with raised voices to get themselves heard above the din of the place, and as the hours draw on, it seems to Erwin that Levi has lost his earlier stiltedness. The alcohol has loosened his muscles and his tongue over time and Erwin is intrigued and amused to discover his host’s penchant for salty and colorful language.

He looks at Levi in the dim light and feels once again that odd sense of comfort and familiarity. He feels like he has known Levi forever and not just for one day. Something builds inside him, slow but sure-- a feeling that he does not want to let go of this perfect day, this perfect moment. 

Eventually, the crowds thin and Levi points out the time.

“It’s getting late,” he says. “You really ought to go back to your hotel, wherever that is. I’ll call you a cab, if you like.”

Erwin is not drunk enough not to remember that he has a room at the Park Hyatt nearby but he realizes that he does not want to go back there, alone. So he leans back in his chair and stares up at the night sky. Back home he almost never gets to see the stars, but here, they seem so close that one can almost reach out and touch them.

The same with the beautiful man sitting opposite him, Erwin thinks. So close yet so far.

“Erwin,” Levi says again.

“I’d like to stay here for a while,” he hears himself say. “Perhaps forever.”

If he feels surprise at uttering those bold words, he does not show it. Even without Levi saying so, he realizes he’s really quite drunk, but Levi says it for him anyway: “You’re drunk and we really should get going.”

“Does that mean you’ll take me home with you?”

Levi looks away. “You don’t mean that,” he says.

“What if I do?”

Erwin knows that it’s the alcohol talking, but he marvels at his own audacity anyway. It is exactly what he wants to say. He watches, his heart pounding and his heartbeat loud in his ears, as Levi freezes ever so minutely. It looks like a short pause, entirely natural, but Erwin knows differently, especially when Levi moves again and raises his cup to his lips. Erwin sees those graceful fingers poised on the rim of the cup and notices the way they tremble ever so slightly. Desire suddenly flares within him— a throb of pure want that pulses from his heart to his groin.

So Levi is not unaffected, after all. He is not unfeeling towards him.

The knowledge inflames and emboldens him. Erwin wants Levi. Even in his befuddled state, it is clear as crystal to him. He is never one to back down or look back, once a decision is made, and right now he wants Levi like he’s not wanted anyone or anything in his entire life. He will say and do everything he can to have him.

Finally, Levi says, “is that really what you want, Erwin?”

The music and noise recede to the background as Erwin gives him a lopsided grin and says, “hell, yes.”

He does not remember much about the trip back to Levi’s house, though surely he must have walked all the way there, with or without Levi’s help. He does remember leaning a bit unsteadily into Levi as Levi unlocks the door, and then he is stumbling through the doorway, all but falling headlong towards the floor as he hears the door shut behind him.

He does not fall on his face though, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s because there is a hand fisted on his shirt, hauling him back and then pinning him against the door. He hears a loud thud and feels the hardness of the wood on his back. Still, it feels like it is happening to somebody else. It is too dark to see, but then he feels something cool and blunt pressing against the skin of his neck.

“You’re so fucking stupid, Erwin Smith,” he hears Levi’s low voice by his ear. “What makes you think you can trust me like this? I can take your wallet and gut you right here, right now, and nobody will ever know.”

He feels again the cool, hard metal against his skin and realizes belatedly that it is the blunt edge of a blade, yet oddly enough he feels no fear, only a heightened sense of what is going on: the sound of their breathing, loud in the darkness, Levi’s hard hands on him, and the solid reassurance of the door behind him.

Somehow, the door helps to keep him calm. Over the years, he has thought of it as something of a talisman. He will come to no harm inside its precincts.

“You won’t harm me,” he says aloud into the waiting darkness.

“You’re very sure of yourself.”

“There was plenty of opportunity earlier, if you really wanted to take advantage of me; but I don’t think it’s what you want, Levi. I think we're both after the same thing. Let’s just take what we want.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are,” growls Levi, “to know what I want?”

“I…know you.” Erwin is not sure what made him say it, but he knows the words to be true as soon as they left his lips.

Levi is saying something, his tone low and angry, but Erwin merely turns his head towards the direction of his voice and raises his hand to capture Levi’s head.

_“What the f—!”_

Erwin bends down and silences Levi with a hard kiss, open-mouthed and hungry. He’s wanted to do this all evening. He feels Levi start in surprise, hears the clatter of the knife as it hits the floor while Levi raises both hands to his chest, trying now to push him away. Erwin only deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding boldly into Levi’s mouth, probing, seeking. Dear god, he’s never done this before—kiss another man— but it is so potent, and so fucking _sweet._

He hears Levi gasp as he writhes in his grasp, surfacing for air while trying to break away from Erwin’s hold, but Erwin keeps his hands on Levi’s head and his nape, holding him still while he recaptures Levi’s mouth. His kisses are ruthless, filled with a surprising desperation that he has never known in himself. He’s never been like this with anyone— rough and unrestrained. He kisses Levi until he feels Levi’s resolve crumble and give way, and then Levi is kissing him back.

He has never known such bliss.

“Levi,” he groans as he trails his lips down that pale, graceful neck that he has lusted after all afternoon.

“Erwin, you stupid fuck,” says Levi, panting. “You don’t want this. You—”

“I want you,” Erwin cuts in, almost growling, “and I know you want me, too. Say it.”

“Erwin—”

_“Say it.”_

“I…I want you, Erwin. But— _ahh…_ ”

Levi cries out as Erwin flips their positions, pinning Levi to the door. He closes the distance, grinding himself against Levi’s body so that there is no room for doubt about his intentions. He swears to god that he has never done any of this before, that he has never been this brazen, so out of control.

 _Dear lord, what is this?_ He wonders hazily as Levi shudders underneath him. He cannot stop himself, it just feels so good. He feels hands trailing down to cup him through his shorts and all thoughts scatter as he groans out loud.

“Levi,” he grounds out even as he rolls his hips in rhythm to the hands that caress him.

“Yeah,” whispers Levi, in the dark, “you like that, don’t you. You always have.”

The words barely filter through Erwin’s consciousness, his entire attention focused on the feel of the hands slipping and sliding against him. Groaning, almost mindless with the pleasure, he leans into Levi as he thrusts against his fingers.

The fingers disappear and Erwin nearly moans in disappointment until he feels Levi’s arms around his neck. Levi hitches up to hook his legs around his waist, and Erwin hears his whispered command, “bedroom. You know where it is.”

Erwin quickly obeys. He lifts Levi into his arms and cradles the man to him as he weaves his way along the dim corridor. All the while he feels Levi’s kisses, light as rain, on his face.

It is a miracle that they make it to the bedroom without any major incident, and he deposits Levi onto the bed. Levi quickly shifts to pin Erwin down as he kisses him with the same intensity, the same hunger that Erwin has shown earlier.

Just when Erwin is starting to relax back into the mattress, Levi is suddenly gone from him. He sits up, a bit dizzy, disoriented, as warm lamplight floods the room. For a moment, his vision swims, and then he sees Levi just as he is fishing out a condom and some lube from his bedside drawer.

Levi sees him watching and shakes his head. “Don’t ask,” he says, his voice soft.

Levi joins him again in bed, straddling him in one fluid motion. “You may want to take off your clothes,” he murmurs against Erwin’s lips, and Erwin laughs.

He takes care of the buttons of his shirt just as Levi frees him from the tight confines of his shorts, his underwear. He hisses in a breath of astonished pleasure as he feels Levi’s hand on his bare flesh, caressing him from root to tip and back.

“Well, look at you,” says Levi, completely absorbed in his task. Erwin flushes as he hears the admiration in Levis’ voice, but he likes it. He likes it very much.

When he is fully erect, Levi takes the condom and rips the package open with his teeth. He rolls the latex over Erwin’s shaft in one practiced movement, so fast that it is over in a blink of an eye.

“Levi,” Erwin says hoarsely, shuddering as Levi gives him a single, fond squeeze before trailing his fingers up his length, and then his touch is gone.

Erwin sits up to help Levi undress, kissing what he can of the smooth, creamy flesh that emerges from the clothes that are quickly shed.

“Gorgeous,” he breathes, “you’re so bloody gorgeous, Levi.”

“Shut up, Erwin,” Levi says, his voice like velvet, as he coats his fingers with lube. Erwin cranes his neck to see as Levi reaches back to prepare himself, but Levi has other ideas as he bends down to take Erwin’s sheathed cock into his mouth, coaxing him back into full hardness.

A rough, crude noise leaves Erwin as his head hits the pillow. His entire body arches off the bed as Levi takes him in as far as he can, his mouth hot and teasing through the latex and not quite enough.

More. Erwin needs more of him.

“Levi,” he rasps, as he feels Levi’s mouth leave him.

Erwin gathers Levi to him, holding him tight as he rolls him under his body. He does not think he can hold back anymore. Levi parts his legs for him, and he feels his mouth drop open at the incredible feeling of sinking into Levi’s embrace and his warm, waiting body as he is taken in hand and slowly guided in.

“Move,” Levi whispers when Erwin is inside and the languid spell is suddenly broken as Erwin surges into him.

                                                                        

                                                                                Art by [**Maino Merry**](https://twitter.com/maino_merry), posted with very kind permission

Until that moment, Erwin did not realize that he can be like this during sex–- deeply, fiercely possessive; his marvelous self-control in tatters. All that matters is that he is inside Levi. He is inside this man whom he has only met that morning, but whom he feels he has known his entire life. Even now, even while he is inside Levi to the hilt, their bodies melded together in the heat of a raw, animal passion that is entirely new to him, Erwin feels that he cannot get enough of Levi. 

 _Deeper, harder_ , a voice chants and it takes him a moment to realize it is Levi, whispering into his ear and fanning the flames of his lust. Even as he quickens his thrusts, Levi clings to him, moaning, his cheek pressed hard against Erwin’s, his legs splayed against Erwin’s shoulders as Erwin wraps his arms and body around him, as he pounds into Levi. Their breathing is harsh, almost sobbing, the urgency building between them a bright, hard thing; devastating and beautiful all at once. Even then, Erwin feels that he cannot be close enough to Levi— even as their rhythm stutters and breaks away from them in the incoming, rushing tide of orgasm.

He hears their voices, linked together like their bodies—his triumphant roar, deep-throated and full, and Levi’s long, drawn-out moan of helpless pleasure-- as they succumb to rapture. They lie together afterward in a tangle of limbs, momentarily exhausted. Erwin’s hand is in Levi’s hair, his fingers gentle as they rake through dark, silken strands. He leans over to lick at the beads of sweat starting on Levi’s forehead.

When their breathing subsides, Levi says, “fuck. That was…”

Erwin breathes out a laugh. “Yeah. It was extraordinary.”

He does not tell Levi, but it is, in fact, the best sex he has ever had, which is why he cannot bring himself to regret it— not then, anyway. Perhaps everything will come crashing down on his consciousness the morning after, when he wakes up to find his heart enslaved, but right now he has Levi in his arms and he feels incredibly happy. He has been made whole, and they still have the entire night ahead of them. 

* * *

**Bonus links:** In case you'd like to see pics of the [Park Hyatt Zanzibar](https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=park+hyatt+zanzibar&rlz=1C1LDJZ_enJP497JP497&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=662&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhvuvfzbzQAhXDq5QKHUHJCtAQsAQIRw&dpr=1#imgrc=UufHicF9l0nCWM%3A) where Erwin is staying...XD


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Hi there! It's been such a long, long while since my last update for this story. Apologies! RL has been at it again. So on with the story, and may I say the chapter is one big OUCHIE!!! Rest assured the story will end happily though! Enjoy!

* * *

Erwin does not know for how long he slept but when he finally comes to, the sun is high in the sky beyond the white, fluttering curtains of an unfamiliar window.

He tries to rise and succeeds in only lifting his head a few inches before he is forced to bring it back down on the pillow. It is pounding terribly and for a moment he thinks it might split wide open. With a moan he shuts his eyes against the harsh glare of midday, wondering how it can be so bright and hot when it is supposed to be winter in Montreal—

He starts, eyes flying wide open, when he finally remembers everything.

He is not in Montreal. He is here, halfway around the world, in Zanzibar, in another man’s bedroom. A man he's met only yesterday and whom he has already gone to bed with.

_Levi._

He turns to look at the empty pillow beside him, his heart hammering inside his chest, his mind racing. Underneath the crumpled linen sheets, he remembers that he is buck naked.

Dear god, he’s gone to bed with another _man…_

From the doorway, there is a faint sound of a throat being cleared and Erwin winces as he turns to see Levi, leaning against the door frame nonchalantly, his arms crossed over his chest.

“So you’re finally up, Sleeping Beauty,” Levi says. He is not quite smiling, but there is something in his lidded gaze that rolls through Erwin like the sure touch of a warm hand.

“Levi—”

“Get dressed,” says Levi, already turning away to leave. “I made you some coffee.”

Erwin finds his clothes not strewn about the floor from last night but neatly folded on top of the chest of drawers, with his phone resting on top of the pile. He dresses in awkward haste, and all the while he thinks _no_.

No, this is not how things are supposed to turn out between them. There is so much he needs to say to Levi but he does not know where to begin. He is so hungover that he cannot even think straight.

In the kitchen, Levi has reverted to being formal and polite as Erwin, feeling infinitely disheveled and in need of a bath, sits down before a steaming mug of coffee with a splash of milk and no sugar. He is too bemused to ask how Levi knows how he likes his coffee and before he can open his mouth, Levi starts the Talk.

Only, it is not any kind of Morning After Talk that Erwin is accustomed to and it is definitely not something he wants to hear.

Levi says, “Let’s cut the bullshit and go straight to the point. There’s no need to dwell further on what we did last night. We’re consenting adults. We’re from two separate worlds who just happened to meet. Strangers in the night and all that shit. We fucked. We enjoyed it. Now we go back to our daily lives and not look back. That’s all there is to it. I don’t think there’s any need to complicate things, do you?”

Erwin shuts his eyes. A part of him understands that what Levi has just said is entirely sound and logical, yet he is reeling, unable to believe what he’s just heard.

_No. Not like this._

Something inside him—the tough, charming negotiator capable of closing the deals and bringing in the huge projects and contracts for his firm— kicks in. He attempts a smile and says, “come on, Levi, what’s brought this on? Can’t you give me a break, please? I’m—”

“I _am_ giving you a break, asshole,” says Levi, entirely without heat. He sets his elbows on the table and leans in, surveying Erwin with calm grey eyes. “I am trying to make this as easy for you as possible. There’s nothing in this for us and you know it. I'm letting you walk away without having to worry about anything. You don’t belong here, Erwin.”

Those words, uttered in that cool, low voice, are like a knife straight through his heart. Erwin rubs at his forehead and thinks again that this cannot be happening. He tries again. He knows it's not going to get him anywhere with Levi but he has to try, at least. “Last night—”

“Last night was a one-night stand, a holiday fuck. Haven’t you had one of those?” Levi takes one good look at his stricken face and murmurs pityingly, “oh. You haven’t.”

Erwin feels the knife twisting deep inside his heart. The situation is unraveling, slipping through his fingers. He cannot close his hands around any of this; he has absolutely no control. He would like to say that they have something special between them, yet it is worse than cliché. It is cardboard against the concrete of Levi’s arguments, so sane, so matter-of-fact. Whatever reasoning he may have has died before it can even reach his tongue.

He feels it and knows that Levi knows it. He has lost. There is nothing more to be said. Still, he persists. “Is this…really what you want, Levi?”

Levi does not answer him. Instead, he gives one final nod at his direction and says, “I have to leave for work in five minutes, and you have a plane to catch.”

He is not given time to say goodbye, however awkward it may be, much less given an opportunity to ask for Levi’s number or any form of contact detail. He is simply swept out of Levi’s door by an absent wave of the hand.

In what seems like a cruel twist of fate, Erwin finds himself standing once again before the large teak door, closed to him now with a finality that was not there before.

And that is that.

* * *

 

It is only later, much later, when he has somehow managed to get himself back to his hotel in one piece and he is standing under the stinging blast of the hot shower, his heart frozen inside him as he reluctantly scrubs away the feeling and scent of Levi from his body that his brain finally catches up with him. It occurs to him then that perhaps Levi may have checked his phone— something that has somehow managed to slip his mind for the past day or so.

When he finally accesses his phone, he finds the alarm notification for his flight back to Montreal that afternoon, along with six messages from Marie.   


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes:** Welcome to another update! Please mind the tags before reading! Dealing with a lot of uncomfortable issues here which are reminiscent of RL...

* * *

“Erwin.”

He hears his name as though from far away— an echo of an echo—but it is enough to bring him back to the present. He looks down at his half-eaten meal, at the candle-lit table in front of him with its gleaming silver and porcelain and at the glasses of red wine. In the softly lit and obviously expensive restaurant, they are all in their rightful setting, just like the beautiful woman sitting across him; but Erwin feels as though he is seeing her for the first time.

“Are you alright?” Marie asks.

“Yes, sorry, it must be the jet lag,” he says, his reply coming out with practiced smoothness even as his mind continues to roil in private torment.

“So how was London?”

“The same. It was quite cold.”

She waits for him to say something more and when he does not, she laughs her soft, silvery laugh.

“You should have come back immediately after the meetings, then,” she says, smiling. “Or I should have gone with you, if only my schedule permitted.”

Marie is an interior designer from a prestigious firm and they have met through their work. They have been together on and off for five years. Erwin has heard it said often enough among their friends and colleagues that they are the perfect couple. Some have even gone so far as to say they were practically made for each other, that they were destined to be together. Many have asked openly and Erwin knows that Marie herself is wondering about it.

What is taking him so long to propose?

He himself has turned the idea of marriage over and over in his head, and in the past five years he had come close to proposing to her twice. Before leaving for London, he thought he was going to settle the matter once and for all once he got back.

Now, across the table that separates them, he can see the slightly puzzled but expectant look in her eyes. This dinner was his idea in the first place. The reservation was made before his business trip to London, yet he has come back a changed man.

He does not tell her about his sudden alteration in travel plans at the very last minute when he was at Heathrow airport, about to catch his flight home. He does not tell her about his trip to Zanzibar or that he’s been to see the door again. Or the man he met emerging from it. How can he even begin to tell her any of this in the subdued, romantic atmosphere of the restaurant, amid the quiet laughter and murmured talk, the tinkle of glass and silver?

He does not propose to her at the end of the meal. They do not spend the night together.

Marie maintains her own apartment at the other side of town, close to her own office, and he drops her off there before he returns to his minimalist house of steel and glass that he’d designed himself and which some have remarked suited his character perfectly: beautifully accomplished and elegant, but cold.

Later that night, unable to sleep, he gets up from bed and, feet bare, pads silently into his study. He opens the drawer that houses the small, black velvet box containing the engagement ring that he did not think to bring with him to the restaurant.

_“Erwin.”_

He thinks again of his name being called, this time by a different voice. Not a woman’s but a voice deeper and unmistakably male. A voice cool and still, like a small pond in a quiet, landscaped garden.

_“Erwin!”_

The same voice but rougher, the tone more urgent, and Erwin remembers the harsh delight of driving himself deep into that smaller body that was hard and muscular like his own. He was drunk at the time, but not drunk enough to forget the smell and texture of Levi’s skin; the way he tossed his dark head back to reveal the fine column of his throat as he came with Erwin pounding into him.

He has never known such raw passion; the intense need to possess another person so thoroughly.

Sitting in the cool darkness of his study with his head bowed as he stares at the ring meant for someone else, Erwin thinks of Levi, of those few hours of rapture when they made mad, frantic love, again and again; when time seemed to stand still and there were just the two of them, alone in their own little world.

In that small pocket of time he never even once thought of Marie.

The late Montreal sunrise finds Erwin still in his study, the velvet box clutched tightly in his hand, his eyes dry and his heart frozen, refusing to thaw in the steadily warming light of the new day.

* * *

 

Unsurprisingly, a coolness now settles between himself and Marie. She has not called or texted since their dinner, and Erwin tries to tell himself that he is too busy as well. He stays for longer hours at the office, ostensibly to catch up with work, but he knows it to be a flimsy excuse so that he doesn’t have to spend his evenings listless and alone in his house, which is suddenly too big, too empty for just one person.

On the third straight night of his self-imposed exile from home, the door to his office opens and Hange waltzes in.

“Burning the midnight oil, Erwin? What will HR say?” she says in mock concern.

“Well, it’s only 10 pm,” says Erwin, glancing at his watch, “and I hope HR will forgive me for working whenever I feel like it for the firm’s benefit.”

“Ever the hard-working CEO,” replies Hange with a grin.

“I should say the same about you, Senior Partner,” returns Erwin, smiling. “What will Moblit say?”

“What Moblit doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” says Hange lightly, pertaining to her highly dependable and overly protective secretary whom she has sent home hours ago. “Besides, the Titan Plaza plans can’t wait.”

She seats herself from across Erwin and crosses her arms, looking like she is settling down for a long, drawn-out chat with him. Good. He’s missed their after-hours conversations.

As if sensing his thoughts, Hange continues, “Zacharius has made himself so scarse lately, it’s a shame we don’t go out for late-night coffee anymore, just the three of us.”

“Go easy on the man, Hange,” admonishes Erwin gently. “He’s just got married, after all.”

“And you?” says Hange, eyes suddenly bright behind her glasses, and Erwin realizes she has been maneuvering the conversation around this topic. “I thought I'll hear wedding bells tolling as well in the not-so-distant horizon as far as you’re concerned.”

Erwin’s smile vanishes and he clears his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. “Something came up,” he says evasively.

Hange refuses to be deterred. “Oh?”

Erwin hesitates for a few seconds before he takes the plunge. “I met someone, Hange.”

There is a pause and Erwin braces himself for Hange’s surprise and the ton of questions that must surely follow. Yet Hange goes still for merely a few seconds before she lifts an intrigued eyebrow at him, signaling him to continue.

“Do you remember that door I told you about? The one in Zanzibar?” Erwin realizes how this is going to sound and he’s not sure if even Hange will be able to take its level of improbability, verging on the insane.

Hange, bless her, seems to get it right away. “What? You mean _your_ door?” she asks.

Erwin gives a small, uneasy laugh. He starts to say it’s not _his_ but he pauses, suddenly remembering how he used to describe the door to his friends whenever he showed them the vacation photos on his phone.

 _“Well, this is it. That’s_ my _door right there…”_

He comes back to himself to find Hange waiting patiently for him to continue. Hange, who is never patient about anything.

“Hange, I stopped by Zanzibar after London,” he says in a rush.

_“What?”_

“I don’t know what possessed me to do it,” says Erwin, sounding as baffled as Hange. “I was at Heathrow on my way back here after the meetings with the investors. There was an outgoing flight for Nairobi and I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”

“The flight time from London to Zanzibar is almost thirteen hours.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why I did it,” confessed Erwin. “I’ve not seen that door for over two years and thought it wouldn’t hurt to see it one more time before I…asked Marie to marry me.”

“Aaand?” prompted Hange when Erwin fell silent.

“I met the owner of that door, Hange. His name is Levi, and he’s just…perfect.”

“Oh,” says Hange. Then, on a longer breath, “oohhhh, Erwin…”

“This is pure madness. I don’t know why I did it, Hange.”

Erwin feels the first trickle of despair as he hears himself parroting his lines: _I don't know...I don't know..._

It takes a moment for the enormity of what Erwin has done to sink in on Hange, and when it does, her eyes go large and round. “Shit! You mean you slept with him! Oh my god, Erwin!”

“I’m not even into men,” continues Erwin, his tone desperate. “I’ve never been with one. But he…he…”

“Does it feel like you know him?” Hange asks, her voice very gentle, and Erwin feels wretched and grateful at the same time.

He closes his eyes, lets out a long, shaky breath that he feels he has been holding back for a long time. “All I know is that he feels like home.”

“Oh, Erwin.”

Erwin shakes his head, his eyes still closed. “I’m so fucked, Hange. I didn’t mean to do this to Marie. She does not deserve this—”

Hange makes a small, thoughtful noise. “Was the sex good?”

 _“Hange!”_ Erwin can feel the heat rising to his cheeks and refuses to dwell on the question. He cannot help remembering the way Levi kissed him though, with his fingertips trailing lightly on Erwin’s parted lips, his breath hot and his tongue wet as he licked into Erwin’s open mouth. Ruthlessly, he tamps down on the pulse of desire that goes from his clenched heart straight down to his groin.

Hange’s next question startles him. “You brought Marie to see the door once, didn’t you?”

Yes, he did, on one of their past vacations together.

“And I remember you said she wasn’t crazy about it,” continues Hange when he remains silent.

She wasn’t, Erwin remembers, but she’d been all adoring patience as she let Erwin rave on and on about the door. Later on, they went scuba diving around the islands, which she liked better. Later still, when they were back home, she would complain laughingly whenever she saw pictures of the door on his phone.

_“Just how many snaps of it do you need on your phone?”_

Months later, she would merely smile at the mention of it, and Erwin finally got the hint and made a point not to talk about the door anymore when Marie “accidentally” deleted a batch of its photos from his phone to make way for their pictures.

Erwin remembers her tone, only half-teasing, when she said, _“If I don’t know any better I’d say you’re in love with it.”_

“What are you getting at, Hange?” he asks now. He has an idea that Hange does not like Marie, or at the very least, she is indifferent to her.

“Was the door ever a factor in your never proposing to Marie all these years?” she asks, ever so direct, yet before he can answer through lips parted in astonishment, Hange goes on, her tone carefully neutral, “and this Levi guy, what’s his deal?”

“There is no deal. I don’t know anything about him and I probably never will,” says Erwin dolefully. “He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me after…that night.”

“ _Oh_ , Erwin…”

“I’m not proud of myself, Hange. Marie will never forgive me if she finds out and she has every right not to.” Even as he says it, Erwin is stunned and devastated to discover that he cannot bring himself to fully feel the regret. He hates himself for it.

Across from him, Hange lets out a small huff. “But that door,” she muses. “It keeps popping up in your life. Rather, you keep going back to it. It's almost like a sign. Does it mean something? _Shouldn’t_ it mean something?”

Hange takes a look at Erwin’s still face and suddenly changes tact.

“But I suppose this is for the best,” she says, shrugging. “We must admit this Levi guy did you a great favor. I've got to ask for his tips on managing you so effectively, ehehe."

When Erwin does not react, Hange turns serious once again and she continues, "perhaps your relationship with Marie is not meant to be, with or without the door. But even if you’re not going to end up with Marie, the other alternative is a huge, huge gamble, Erwin. You don’t even know this Levi _and_ he lives in Zanzibar. I mean, how crazy is that, right?”

_“Do you believe in Fate?”_

It was Levi who told him that, yet Erwin shakes himself out of his little reverie and quells what little hope is threatening to bloom around the sudden revelation of Hange's earlier words. He listens carefully to what Hange has to say next, and in the end, he finds that it does not differ much from the course of action that he has decided to take.

“So what are you going to do now, Erwin?” Hange wants to know, and her eyes are very kind and sympathetic behind her glasses.

“I’m going to do exactly nothing,” he answers.

It is the right thing to do, the adult thing to do, Erwin tells himself. He has never been irresponsible in his entire life and he’s not going to start now.

What’s done is done, and there is very little good to be had in dwelling too much on the past. Like Levi, he will just have to pick up where he left off and live his well-ordered life in his own little corner of the world.

* * *

In the end, Erwin's iron resolve lasts him two weeks.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes:** What? Another update in two days?? Trust me when I say I'm as surprised as you are! I am on a ROLL with this fic! Please mind the tags before proceeding! Have fun!

* * *

He cracks.

It happens while he is presiding over a board meeting. One moment he is speaking normally, the next moment Erwin is assailed by an overwhelming tide of all the emotions he has ruthlessly kept at bay for the past two weeks— panic and grief, loneliness and a deep sense of despair, as if he has made a terrible, terrible mistake.

It stops him cold in his tracks, his breath leaving him abruptly like he has been punched in the gut. He has to pretend that he needs some water, yet after sipping some from a glass, he still cannot find his voice.

Everyone stares at him— Mike, Nanaba, Moblit, Nifa. Everyone except Hange, who is toying with her pencil with an absorption she reserves only for the hardest projects, her lips pursed in concentration.

He manages to get through the meeting and afterwards, he walks to Hange’s office, his palms clammy with sweat. He has made his decision.

“Hange, I need to leave for a few days, can you and Mike look after the office for me, please?” he says without preamble.

If she is surprised, Hange does not show it. “Sure thing, boss,” she says readily as she lounges in her chair, papers in her hand.

“I need…” he swallows. “I need to sort some personal things out, make sense of them.”

“Of course.”

Erwin looks at Hange but light reflects off her glasses, making her expression unreadable. “You know something. I wish you’d just tell me what it is,” he says.

For a moment Hange’s face softens, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. Then she says, “I don’t know what you mean, Erwin, but I hope you do sort out whatever it is you need to sort out.”

She knows well enough what he has to do, he thinks, but he will just have to be content with her cryptic remark. 

* * *

That night Marie comes over.

Their talk is long overdue and she is intent on firing the first salvo.

“It’s never going to happen between us, is it?” she asks bluntly.

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Are you, Erwin?” her voice is marvelously controlled, coolly sardonic. The anger and hurt are barely discernable but they are there.

A part of Erwin wishes that she would just scream at him, call him names, but she does not lose her poise. He will not have it that easy from her. She has far too much pride and dignity to resort to base tactics. They are both mature adults and they talk as such. She does not ask what went wrong. She leaves him to explain as best he can how their love died; if it was ever there in the first place.

“Of course I loved you,” he says.

“Only not enough,” she answers.

The first cracks appear on her well-schooled features when he ventures to tell her about the door.

“What is it between you and that fucking door?” she mutters as she stares at him askance, unable to believe what she is hearing.

After that, her words are sharper although she never raises her voice. Erwin answers her pointed questions unflinchingly. He is painfully honest and holds nothing back.

“So, what? You deliberately went back there and what? Met the owner of that door?” she asks, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Yes. I’ve met him.”

There is no mistaking the implication of his words. She stares at him with wide eyes for several seconds before she gets up from her chair. He knows how utterly barmy everything sounds; she must think he’s gone mad. He glimpses the utter contempt on her face before she turns her head away. “Five years, Erwin,” she merely says. “That was five years of my life right there.”

He closes his eyes, pained. “I’m so sorry, Marie.”

She leaves without saying anything else. Erwin hears his front door shut and he leans back on the sofa, feeling entirely drained and miserable. His chest feels so tight, yet there is no respite; his heart sits like a hot stone in his breast, refusing to dissolve in tears.

He is truly, deeply sorry for the hurt he has caused Marie and he hates how this has all turned out.  He knows that he deserves far worse from her, that he has nobody to blame but himself and that there will be serious social repercussions ahead once word gets out involving his break with her.

Yet none of that stops him from boarding the flight that will take him to Zanzibar early the next day. 

* * *

He is back.

It is cold and rainy in Montreal, the trees bare in winter, yet here in Zanzibar it is perpetual summer.

Erwin stops and lifts his face towards the sun while a gentle breeze plays with his hair. He feels as though he has never left. He can breathe easier again, the painful knot in his chest slowly untangling.

He rounds the corner of Levi’s street and he can feel his heart coming alive inside him. It pounds madly in his chest as that beloved door comes into sight again, solid and reassuring as ever in his recently turbulent world. It is Saturday, and he hopes that Levi will be home. He quickens his pace, and just when he is near enough, the door opens, and out steps Levi, just like before.

Just like before, Levi is dressed in light summer clothes. Just like before, he looks utterly gorgeous. He is talking to someone on the other side of the door, his head turned away so that he doesn’t see Erwin just a few feet away, and god, Erwin has missed him so much. _So much._

“Levi!” The name is out of his mouth before he can help himself and Levi’s head whips around so fast, as though somebody has slapped him.

“Fuck,” says Levi. “Erwin, what the _fuck_ are you doing here?”

Erwin has told himself that he is prepared for anything that Levi might throw his way but he finds that he is not prepared for this. He stops in his tracks, the big smile frozen for a moment on his lips.

“Levi, I came back. I—”

“Fuck, why? Erwin, I _told_ you—” There is panic in Levi’s voice and it goes straight to Erwin’s heart.

Levi doesn’t want him here.

_We have to talk. I’m not going away until I understand what is going on._

The words he has rehearsed over and over in the plane are right there on his tongue but they don’t reach his lips, because just then somebody else emerges from the door: a young man, no older than Levi, quite good-looking and with short ash blond hair sticking out in all directions.

“Levi, what—” the man starts to say and Levi’s hand is suddenly on his arm, pulling at him.

Erwin simply stands there, his heart growing cold as he stares at the young man and Levi; that familiar hand on that arm. Of all the possibilities he’s concocted in his mind, he doesn’t know why he has not thought of this.

Levi turns to him one last time. “Go home, Erwin,” he says in his cool, level voice. “Don’t come back. You don’t belong here.”

He grabs again at the other man’s arm and begins to drag him away.

“Levi, who’s that—”

“Shut up,” Levi hisses at his companion. “It’s nobody.”

Frozen in place, his heart in ashes, Erwin watches them go.

There is nothing more to be said.

* * *

He does not remember going back to his hotel or arranging for the next trip back home, but apparently he does. The next thing he knows, he is lying on his bed with an arm thrown over his closed eyes, waiting for the hours to slip by before the shuttle comes to pick him up and take him back to the airport.

 _Stupid. So stupid!_ He keeps telling himself.

He had Marie. How did it never occur to him that Levi was taken as well?

He is so stupid to think he actually had a chance here.

With the numbness of shock wearing off, Erwin feels the pain, coming at him in waves. Resolutely, he shoves his feelings aside.

This is all for the best, he thinks. This is the sign that he needs to get on with the rest of his life and not pine after some door in the middle of nowhere, especially now that he’s seen what is inside and knows that he’s not wanted, no matter what his feelings and inclinations may tell him.

He moves a hand to clutch at his chest and wills his heart to slow down, to stop aching. His foolish, foolish heart.

Just then his hotel phone rings. He stares at it for a moment, a bit incredulous. It is still too early to check out of the hotel and go to the airport.

The phone rings again, shrill and insistent. He finally reaches out a hand and lifts the receiver.

“Yes?” Slightly annoyed, he uses his CEO voice, the one that is clipped and formal and cold.

“Hello, are you Erwin Smith?” asks an unfamiliar male voice.

Erwin frowns. “Who is this, please?”

“My name is Farlan Church. You don’t know me, Mr. Smith, but we met earlier.”

Erwin’s eyes widen in recognition, but before he can think to ask how Levi’s boyfriend has managed to trace him back to his hotel, the man continues, “Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if we can meet down here at the lobby for a little chat?”


	8. Chapter 8

Erwin does not want to do it.

He does not want to go down and face Levi’s boyfriend. What is the point of it? What can they possibly talk about? How can their interaction be anything but awkward? More importantly, how can it possibly end well?

In the end, he goes down anyway; he cannot help it. He’s come halfway around the world to untangle a mystery and it’s unlike him to not try to get down to the bottom of things, even if he cannot have Levi. Even if it hurts like hell.

But then he does not want to think about Levi anymore. And yet he cannot stop thinking about him.

When he walks out of the elevator and into the spacious lobby of the Park Hyatt, Erwin is surprised to find the young man with the ash-blond hair with a young girl, probably still in her teens, flame-haired and pretty in a sleeveless cotton dress.

“Hi, Mr. Smith,” says Farlan, his tone easy and unruffled as he shakes hands with Erwin and gives him his card.

Erwin looks at the card and reads that Farlan Church is a registered tour organizer for the beautiful islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. He looks up again and sees that young, tanned face, and all he can think about is Levi, fishing out a condom and some lube from one of his drawers. He feels a sharp stab of jealousy and squashes it before it can properly take hold. 

Meanwhile, Farlan is introducing the girl, who gives Erwin a bright, infectious smile: “And this is my sister, Isabel Magnolia.”

Erwin murmurs a perfunctory greeting although he has a hard time hiding his confusion. Why would Levi’s boyfriend think to bring along his little sister to this kind of meeting? Whatever the reason, Erwin is somewhat relieved; at least he is assured that whatever drama that may unfold between them will be kept to a minimum in the face of a third party.

“Can we go someplace for a nice, private chat?” Farlan asks next, looking around the busy lobby lounge. It is the weekend, after all, and the lounge has a band playing loud, lively local music.

Erwin brings them to the hotel café, which has just started its afternoon tea service.  For once in his life, he is at a loss for words. Farlan and Isabel do not seem to notice as they peer at the menu and discuss the offered services with the knowledge of pros at home in their turf. After placing their order, Farlan gives Erwin additional advice on the other notable amenities of the hotel and compares it with other facilities on the island. Overall, Farlan gives the Park Hyatt a rating of A.

Tea arrives, along with a tiered cake stand loaded with sandwiches, cakes and scones. Everything is arranged very prettily and Erwin cannot help but smile at Isabel’s pleasure as she loads her plate with the dainty food. After a few sips of the excellent tea, Farlan finally gets down to business.

“About this morning. I think a bit of explanation is in order, Mr. Smith,” he begins.

Erwin gives an unhappy sigh. It’s now or never. “Yes,” he says in a heavy tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get in the way between you and Levi. I didn’t realize that he was…taken.”

There is silence. A long silence, as Farlan and Isabel stare at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Then Isabel splutters out laughter while Farlan says, “whoa, whoa. Wait. What? Levi—?”

“You.” Erwin gestures at him even as his confusion sinks in deeper. “Levi’s got you.”

Why are they laughing? And so long and uproariously?

“Oh my god,” says Farlan as he wipes at his eyes. “That’s got to be the best line I’ve heard in years.”

“But, aren’t you his—?”

 _“Cousin,”_ says Farlan, still laughing. “I am that git’s cousin, along with Isabel. Oh my god!”

The relief is so profound that Erwin sags back into his seat as he gapes at Farlan. “Oh,” he says simply. “Oh dear god.”

There is no stopping the flush that steals up his face. He has made such a big, big fool of himself. 

“So this is what it’s all about,” Farlan was saying, shaking his head as he gazes at Erwin incredulously. “That idiot was shaking from head to toe back there but he wouldn’t tell me anything. Just told me to shut up and mind my own damned business.”

Erwin shakes his head. “This is so awkward, I know,” he says. “Not to mention strange.”

“And no doubt it’s going to get even weirder, if what I’m suspecting is correct,” Farlan says. He narrows his eyes speculatively at Erwin. “Is your name really Erwin Smith?”

Erwin looks at Farlan and wonders whether this is yet another joke. “Yes,” he finally says.

“Well then, do you believe in ghost stories, Mr. Smith?”

* * *

 

They stay at the lounge for hours, talking. Rather, Farlan talks and Erwin listens to a story so outlandish that he does not know what to make of it.

In the end, all he can say is, “So, I’m…”

“You were the commander of a corps of soldiers dedicated to taking down giants bent on destroying mankind who were trapped behind walls, yeah,” Farlan summarizes. “And Levi was your right-hand man.”

“And you two were—”

“—His friends, more like his family, just like in present times.” Farlan leans forward. “No offense, but we wanted you dead in our past lives just so we can get to live above ground. I hope you understand that it was nothing personal. In the end though, we bit the dust first. Got killed off by a titan during our very first expedition. It got me through the abdomen, while Isabel here—”

Isabel rolls her eyes and sticks out her tongue as she mimicks a slicing motion through her throat with the finger of one hand.

Erwin stares at Isabel before he transfers his gaze back to Farlan. His thoughts must be written plain on his face, because Farlan says, “Look, Mr. Smith, I know how it sounds, and believe me, Levi had the worst of it while growing up with these memories of a violent past life that he just could not shake off. We were all worried sick about him and as a kid, he’d been to more doctors than we could count. He’d even been taken to a witch-doctor who told his mother he was possessed by a _sheitani_ — a local demon—though she stopped short of having him go through an exorcism. In the end, just to save her from worrying, he simply stopped talking about it all, though it’s obvious the memories are part of his daily life.”

“And you believe everything?”

“How can we not,” says Farlan, “when he knows so many things about us, me and Isabel. Things we sometimes don’t even know about ourselves. Things that haven’t happened yet…I see he’s pulled off a trick or two on you as well.”

Erwin closes his eyes briefly as he remembers that night when Levi threw him against the door. He was drunk then but he remembers the tiny detail now. “He…knew my surname even without my telling him,” he says slowly.

“And he knew that his mother would die young, and she did, a year ago. Cancer,” says Farlan with a small shrug and a downward twist of his mouth. “And this isn’t the first time he’s mentioned you to us, and when I found out you were registered here at the hotel under the name Erwin Smith, I just knew we had to talk to you. But you’re just like us. You don’t remember anything.”

Farlan is right: he doesn’t.

“What has he said about me?” Erwin cannot help but ask.

“Well,” says Farlan wryly. “It seems like you guys were very close.”

Erwin does not even know what _that_ means and he is not certain whether he ought to ask Levi’s cousin for any clarification.

“I wonder why he’d turn me away now though,” he says, unable to keep the unhappiness from his voice. Then, because he has to ask it: “Is he…does he have someone?”

Farlan snorts. “Nah, I don’t think that git’s ever had anyone. I mean, have you actually _seen_ him? He’s not exactly the outgoing, gregarious type.”

Erwin thinks again about the condom and the lube in Levi’s dresser and decides that Farlan does not know everything about Levi. It is a bit of a relief.

When Farlan glances at Erwin again, his eyes are very kind. “It won't hurt for you to go and talk to him.”

Erwin looks away. “I tried doing that this morning. He’s made it very clear that he doesn’t want to see me anymore.” Yet even as he says it, Erwin knows that nothing can stop him from seeing Levi again. Not after all of this.

Farlan lets out a gentle huff. “Well, he just might change his mind. Anyway, It’s all up to you, Mr. Smith. Whether you’d like to find out more, that is. If not, then the shuttle bus that will take you to the airport will be arriving in an hour and we wish you a nice life. But if you’d like to stay, I’d recommend you go visit Levi, say, around ten tonight—”

“Better make that eleven,” says Isabel darkly.

“Yeah, better make that eleven,” Farlan says with a grin as he exchanges a meaningful look with his sister. He turns back to Erwin and extends his hand for another handshake. “Thanks for the tea and goodbye, Mr. Smith. Good luck with your decision, whatever it may be.”

They take their leave of him at the café as Erwin turns their conversation around and around in his head. When he finally crosses the lobby to return to his room, he walks by the concierge who very helpfully informs him that he has only thirty minutes left if he wants to check out.

The shuttle bus is already waiting outside the hotel but Erwin has made up his mind.

* * *

 

Eleven o’clock finds Erwin walking the quiet streets to Levi’s house, with only the bright moonlight to guide him. Everything is bathed in shades of white and blue and black, and the silence is broken only by the occasional barking of a neighborhood dog, but he feels no fear, only a strange exhilaration.

Finally he stands in front of the door again, and an overwhelming feeling of want engulfs him. At first, he does not know whether he ought to ring the bell or knock on the door, but he takes one look at the dark and silent window above him and suddenly, it becomes clear to him what he must do.

“Levi, it’s me,” he calls out, his voice startlingly loud, and for once in his life, he does not care. He does not care if the neighbors will hear, but it is absolutely essential that Levi does. “I know you’re up there, and I know you can hear me. Won’t you let me in?”

There is silence for a few minutes and Erwin can feel his courage ebbing, but he presses on, “I…I know everything, Levi, about what happened to us before and I just want you to know that I believe you. I know all about our past life, what you went through. How you let me go in the end. I know everything, and I just want us to talk about it. I want you to tell me, please. Won’t you please let me in?”

His voice breaks around the last few words and he feels ridiculously close to tears. He is so sad, so sad that things have come to this for Levi, for himself. He is here, right in front of Levi’s closed door, right on the very edge of Levi’s life, and he feels that he cannot take another step further.

He feels very tired all of a sudden and he leans his forehead against the old wood of the door as he sighs in defeat. He stumbles and nearly falls as the door silently gives way an inch or two before him. For a moment, Erwin stares at it in disbelief as he clutches at the door frame.

The door is unlocked. It was actually left open.

 _Farlan_ , he thinks as he feels his heart swell with hope.

Erwin swallows hard as he raises a hand to push the door in further. It swings back on silent hinges as he resolutely steps inside.


	9. Part II: Levi

Drunk.

Levi is so drunk but it is not enough to blunt the pain that courses deep within him. Ever since he’s seen Erwin outside his door again that morning, something inside him seems to have snapped and given way. It feels like a dam breaking— all his love, all his grief from a lifetime ago pouring forth and spilling over to the present— and he is absolutely powerless to staunch the tide of conflicting emotions that he has kept ruthlessly at bay for more than half his life.

So he drinks. And he drinks some more.

Farlan and Isabel came by earlier in the evening, bearing food and beer, and keeping up a steady stream of such nonsensical chatter that it almost drove him crazy. He wanted to be alone, yet he did not want to be alone with his thoughts. And so he drank to drown out everything, and when it could not happen fast enough, he drank some more.

Thankfully, Farlan did not bring up the curious subject of the blond visitor again, though he was full of questions earlier in the day. Farlan knows all about his past life and Erwin Smith but Levi hoped that Farlan would not make the connection, and he was glad when Farlan seemed to have forgotten all about the weird encounter by dinner.

It is better this way, thinks Levi grimly.

Certainly, it is better for Erwin to stop coming around, breathing life and hope into a thing that is long dead and buried. What they had in the past happened in a single night— the last night of Erwin’s life— and it belongs nowhere else except in Levi’s memories. Certainly, it does not belong in the present. Erwin has his own life now-- a new life that has no place for him. Their all-consuming mission to save humanity had bound them to each other in their past lives. There is nothing to bind them in the present, and that is fine, Levi keeps telling himself. If things have come to this, then he’d made the right decision in letting Erwin die in their previous lives. It had been worth it to let Erwin go, if it meant he could be reborn into a better life, a happier life such as the one he has now.

Erwin does not seem to remember anything about their past life and it is important to Levi that he never remembers. Ever.

Yet after everything that’s been said and done, it was he, Levi, who made the first mistake.

He should not have stepped out of his door and shown himself to Erwin. He’d seen Erwin before his door all these years and he couldn’t understand why Erwin kept coming back, but Levi had tried to do the right thing and keep to his resolution until he suddenly could not. What had made him reveal himself?

It’s been two years since he’d last seen Erwin, and a year since his mother had died. Since then he’s lived all alone in this big, old house. He keeps telling himself that the loneliness has finally got to him, but it is a lie and he knows it.

It is more than that.

It has more to do with seeing Erwin two years ago. He was not alone that time. There was a woman with him, beautiful and sophisticated. Obviously she was his girlfriend and equally obviously, she was smitten with him. Standing unseen behind the intricate, latticed window, Levi had looked at the golden couple on the street below and felt his blood turn to ice. Long after they’d gone, he stood there, seemingly frozen in place, unable to move.

Erwin was moving on.

And it was fine, he told himself, ignoring the rush of grief he was astounded to realize he was feeling. It seemed to gush inside him quite suddenly, like a waterfall.

What did he expect?

In the next two years, he’d expected nothing more. Erwin was gone, never to return. He was probably already married and had started a family of his own. Good for him. That’s how things ought to be in this world, Levi kept saying to himself. He was resolved to be happy for him.

Then one day, one fine day two weeks ago, just when Levi had some time to idle by the seat behind the latticed window, he saw the familiar, lone figure coming down the street below him once again, and good reason and sound resolution be damned.

There was no hesitation this time around. Levi was down the stairs and out his door before he could even think things through. When his mother died of cancer, Levi thought she’d taken away his ability to feel as well, and he’d looked upon it with something close to relief. Now he knew differently, if the heartache was anything to go by.

He did not know how he managed to pull it all off, how he managed to get some words out when all the while his heart was in his throat. But it felt good; it felt so, so good to have Erwin finally see him. To have that astonished blue gaze settle upon him was like the first rays of the sun to a newly blossomed sunflower. Then Erwin smiled and Levi found that he could not get enough of it, either. Erwin’s voice was the same, his demeanor more relaxed and carefree, like a man who never had to bear the weight of the world upon his shoulders; a man who did not have blood in his hands. It was everything that Levi could ever wish for him in this world.

Even more intoxicating was the realization that Erwin seemed to take to him from the very start. Over the course of the day they’d spent together, Levi had tried half-heartedly to shake him off, to send him along his way, but he was powerless before Erwin’s charm and his determination to have his way and stay. Like a being starving to death who suddenly found himself before a feast, Levi wanted to gorge on the man.

There was no stopping what happened that night, though Levi tried. It was a token resistance, at best. That night, the old Erwin seemed to come to light—bold and assertive, decisive—tearing forth from the polished, polite veneer of his present self as he took matters firmly in hand. When they made love, it felt like that other night, that first and final night in their past lives when Levi had walked into Erwin’s room and laid a hand on his commander. Levi could have wept at the sheer perfection of it.

Of course, everything came crashing down the next morning when Levi awoke to the awkward and complicated reality. He had only meant to tidy up the clothes strewn all over the floor and not look into Erwin’s cell phone, but look into it he did and the messages from the woman known as Marie were enough to shatter whatever fragile hope he carried within himself.

By the time Erwin woke up from his drunken slumber, Levi’s mind was set. He did not know what Erwin was thinking, indulging in a one-night stand with a person he must view as a complete stranger when he had someone else waiting for him in Montreal, but Levi was resolved to do the right thing. He would not allow Erwin to throw away his happiness and everything he had worked hard for in this life on a whim. He would not let Erwin stay with him. He would give him no grounds to regret anything. More importantly, he would not let Erwin remember the past, even if it's the only way he might remember him, Levi.

He’d done a good job in sending Erwin away, if he could say so himself. Never mind what it cost him.

So why was Erwin back this morning?

“That’s because you’re so stupid, Erwin,” Levi hears himself saying. He is back in the present, seated just behind the latticed window overlooking the quiet street below. "What did you think was going to happen?"

He remembers the look of shock and dismay on Erwin’s face when he saw Farlan and Levi is thankful for that moment of misunderstanding. Such perfect timing. It has saved him from having to confront Erwin and all his arguments which he cannot address; Erwin's persuasion which Levi fears he just might give in to.

And now Erwin is truly gone. He's probably on the plane back to Canada.

Levi sighs as he closes his eyes and lets his head loll to the side until it touches the wooden edge of the window. He knows he's on his way when he's concocted an imaginary Erwin to talk to. It only happens when he's really, really drunk. Pathetic. Moonlight filters in through the intricate iron grills, tracing ornate patterns on the floor that seem to dance as Levi’s vision swims. He waits impatiently for the blessed oblivion that the alcohol will bring.

Already, his mind is slipping in and out of consciousness and there are brief periods where he half-dreams, half-remembers that night he went into Erwin’s room to find the commander with his head in his hands. He remembers putting a hand lightly on Erwin’s shoulder, remembers Erwin flinching slightly at the contact before he moved to cover Levi’s hand with his own. 

He remembers saying to Erwin, just before their lips touched for the first time: “no regrets.”

They would have kissed, but then Levi hears Erwin say, his voice distant but quite distinct: ““Levi, it’s me. I know you’re up there, and I know you can hear me. Won’t you let me in?”

Even in his state, he finds the statement weird. Levi rouses enough to look around and can find no trace of Erwin. Except for the thin light of the waning moon, everything around him is dark. Still the voice floats up to him: “I…I know everything, Levi, and I just want you to know that I believe you. I know all about our past life, what you went through. How you let me go in the end. I know everything, and I just want us to talk about it. I want to know, please. Won’t you please let me in?”

Fuck. Everything's getting all mixed up but Levi still knows the difference. “Not real,” whispers Levi as he shakes his head and settles back in his window seat. He feels like crying. “You’re not real. I’m already asleep.”

He dozes for what seems like seconds, perhaps minutes, only to wake up to the touch of a hand on his shoulder.

“Levi,” Erwin says. The voice sounds so near, it feels like the man is standing right beside him.

Levi wonders if it’s Erwin’s ghost from the past, but he feels no fear, so he thinks he’s probably wrong. He glances up and thinks he sees those blue eyes gazing down at him, but everything is wrapped in shadows so he’s not very sure. He feels himself slipping away again and he welcomes it.

“You’re not there,” slurs Levi as his eyes flit closed. “And I’m already dreaming.”

If he feels arms wrapping around him, he does not remember. Nor does he remember being lifted up very tenderly and being carried into the bedroom. 

* * *

What he remembers next is waking up with a splitting headache to the sound of his phone ringing. It is muffled but persistent, coming from somewhere around his thigh and he digs into his pants pocket for it without even bothering to open his eyes. They feel swollen, sealed tightly shut, and the effort to open them is just too much for Levi right now.

“What the fuck, Farlan,” he growls into the phone, not even bothering with niceties. His tongue feels like a dead lizard inside his mouth: dry and scaly.

“And good morning to you, too,” says the relentlessly cheerful voice on the other side. “It’s already nine o’clock. I see you’re still alive, so no cause for concern, right?”

“What the hell are you even getting at?” grates Levi, wincing as he tries to move his head a fraction, which is not a good idea. He still doesn’t open his eyes. Fatigue drips from his voice. “Last night’s bout was nothing. You’ve seen me worse.”

There is a bit of a pause before Farlan speaks again, cautiously, “I take it he’s not there right now? What the hell did you do, drive him away again?”

Levi doesn’t get it. “What the fuck are you even—”

“I mean _Erwin Smith_ , you moron.”

Levis’ eyes fly open at the name. He’s lying on his back in bed. He has no idea how he got there. He turns his head too fast and winces, and for a moment, things tilt crazily before his vision clears and he sees the man curled up beside him, fast asleep.

_“Fuck--!”_

“Oh, so he’s still there,” says the smug voice on the phone. “Well, I guess you’re more bombed out than you’re letting on, if you can’t even remember being with him last night. I’ll do you guys a favor and hang up now. Wouldn’t want to intrude on your privacy. You’re welcome, by the way. You owe me big time, Levi.”

Levi hears none of Farlan’s triumphant words as the phone drops from his suddenly nerveless fingers. Through his throbbing headache, he continues to stare in utter disbelief at Erwin, golden hair tousled, sleeping peacefully by his side like the man belongs there and nowhere else.


	10. Chapter 10

Levi tries to get up but only succeeds in slipping down the side of the bed. His legs feel rubbery underneath him. All the while, he keeps his gaze fastened on Erwin’s sleeping figure.

 _What to do? What to do?_ He tries to rack his sluggish brain into action but it is numb, frozen in shock and disbelief. He stares at Erwin for a moment longer before he groans aloud and rests his aching head against the side of the bed.

_Erwin, you idiot._

Bathroom. He needs to go to the bathroom. He’ll deal with Erwin’s idiocy later.

Shutting himself into the close confines of the bathroom restores a bit of Levi’s perspective. Things get a little easier as his morning routine kicks in and he focuses on brushing his teeth and scrubbing his face. He then decides that the best thing to do is to keep himself occupied and on the move, so he emerges from the bathroom and heads to the kitchen to make himself some tea. He feels a bit better after he’s downed his first cup of strong black tea and he pads back to the bedroom, bracing himself as if for battle.

Erwin is still out of it. Levi deflates somewhat as some of the tension dissipates and he returns to gazing at the man before him. Erwin is lying on his side, and Levi is relieved to find him fully clothed in a white polo shirt and tan shorts that almost reach his knees. Good. At least he’s sure they did not fuck last night when he was unconscious.

Even in sleep, every line of Erwin’s figure is full of a natural, masculine grace. The expression on his face is peaceful, almost boyish, and it takes some effort for Levi to rid himself of the memory of how Erwin looked as he died on that rooftop in their past life.

Yet here he is now, fully alive, and sprawled in Levi’s bed as though he owns it.

 _How dare he_ , thinks Levi, too resigned to be indignant.

_How dare he look so beautiful._

After a while, Levi tears his gaze away as he gnaws on his bottom lip. He knows he is in deep trouble, if he is so hungry for the mere sight of this man that all he can do is stare, transfixed, at Erwin while he sleeps. He knows he is losing the fight even before it begins when he finds himself sitting on the edge of the bed, then laying down full length beside Erwin.

He considers nudging Erwin awake but he knows he is jetlagged as hell, having come halfway around the world. And for what?

Levi feels the old fears rising inside him. He does not believe in happily-ever-afters, not after the past life he’s had; but he is afraid that Erwin just might make him believe in one. The man is capable of anything, Levi knows, and he is afraid that he will be able to do nothing but follow and obey him, just as he always had. Even worse, he just might convince himself that it’s all worth it.

Levi watches, his breath catching, as Erwin stirs slightly in his sleep. After a minute or so, when nothing else happens, Levi raises a tentative hand to brush away a few strands of golden hair from Erwin’s forehead. He remembers the texture of Erwin’s hair the first time he’d plunged his hands greedily through it, pulling Erwin’s head back before they shared their first kiss.

As always when he is with Erwin, time seems to stop having any meaning. The past merges with the present so perfectly, so seamlessly, that Levi feels as though everything has happened only yesterday.

His touch now is light, barely even there, yet Erwin seems to sense it.

Levi feels the inevitability of it all as Erwin gradually comes awake in his bed. He watches the flicker of those long, thick blond lashes as Erwin opens his eyes slowly, blinking once or twice. All the while, Levi feels his heart beating madly in his chest and he feels like falling, falling into the depths of those blue, blue eyes.

Erwin shows no embarrassment at all as he gazes back at Levi, the light in his eyes soft and a small, shy smile touching the corners of his lips.

“Hi,” says Erwin, his deep voice gravelly from sleep.

Levi fights to remain calm. “You’ve got some balls, coming back here,” he says.

He watches the gentle smile on Erwin’s lips widen into a full grin and knows he is losing the fight, fast.

“I had to take my chance,” Erwin replies. “If you know me as well as I think you do, my decision will not come as a surprise to you.”

His fond look does not change, but Levi can see the familiar iron resolve in those blue eyes. This time, Erwin will not be shaken off very easily.

“No,” agrees Levi. “But it changes nothing. I won’t let you throw your life away like this.”

“I’m not throwing it away,” counters Erwin. “Not when it's just been made complete.”

“What about your girlfriend?” Levi tries but he cannot remove the bitterness from his voice entirely. “Or she’s probably your wife by now.”

“I broke up with her, Levi.”

“That’s a very dumb thing to do. Dumbass.”

Levi sees the way Erwin sets his jaw but his voice comes out gentle and steady as before. “I make no excuses for hurting Marie,” Erwin says. “It is all my fault; but it would have been a larger mistake if I had married her, and I came so close.”

“How can it be a mistake to marry her?”

“Because every time I came close to proposing marriage, I’d think of your door,” replies Erwin. “Every time I felt happy, it didn’t feel complete. All my life, I felt as though a part of me were missing, and I found it here, with you. So you see, I can't go on without you. I can't live out a lie with Marie and drag her along with me by marrying her.”

Levi grits his teeth. _“You don’t know anything about me,”_ he says. It comes out harsher than he intended, and he is aghast at the anguish and disappointment so clearly evident in his tone.

“No,” says Erwin sadly. “No, I don’t, Levi, but I want to know you. I want to _rediscover_ you. Do you know how many times I’ve been here?”

“More times than is good for you.”

“This is my thirteenth trip to Zanzibar,” says Erwin. “I’ve been coming here for half my life. Everyone’s wondered why I keep coming back. If it’s just for the beaches and the scuba diving, surely there are nearer places to go to. But thirteen times halfway around the world— we can hardly call it a coincidence, can we?”

“ _Why_ do you keep coming back?”

“I’ve wondered about it myself, and for the longest time I didn’t know. I could not have known,” Erwin answers, “but since I came across your door the answer has been staring at me right in the face. I was a fool not to have seen it immediately, but how can I have guessed, given circumstances as extraordinary as ours.”

“Right,” says Levi with a snort. “And you’re telling me that you believe all the bullshit Farlan has told you last night? We’re talking about fucking reincarnation here. Any sane man would have hopped onto the next plane back to Canada.”

“It wasn’t so much Farlan as you,” Erwin returns coolly. “Clearly, you believe in that past life that we shared, and I believe in you, Levi.”

Levi feels himself flushing, his heart beating hard in his chest. Trust Erwin to make everything so difficult. Still, he persists in being obstinate: “How could you possibly?” 

“Because you know me,” says Erwin, simply, directly. “You know me better than anyone else, Levi.”

Even if Levi can think to say anything, he finds that he cannot. His throat has closed up, and, to his horror, he feels his eyes filling with unshed tears. He wishes he can tell Erwin to stop staring at him, to look away, but in the end, he turns his head and buries his face against the pillow.

He feels Erwin’s hand on his shoulder, hesitant for only a moment before his touch becomes more certain as Erwin rakes long fingers into Levi’s dark hair, gathering him in as Levi’s shoulders shake silently.

For what seems like long, long minutes, Levi cries into Erwin’s shoulder. He is beyond mortified that he cannot seem to stop weeping or to move away from Erwin. It feels like a dam has broken inside him, releasing a flood of tears. All the while, Erwin caresses him with gentle hands, his lips against Levi’s ear as he murmurs, over and over, “Levi. My brave Levi. It’s alright. It’s alright now…”

Finally, when the huge, wracking sobs have subsided to a mere sniffle, Levi feels Erwin’s fingers on his chin, tilting his face up. Levi screws his eyes shut but feels his belligerence running out. Erwin kisses him anyway, his lips cool against Levi’s, growing warm as he follows through the soft, chaste kiss with another, and another. All the while, Levi feels like he has forgotten to breathe. When he opens his mouth to take in more air, he feels Erwin’s tongue, warm and wet, gliding in to tease his. From there, the warm, moist kisses turn scorching in no time.

Erwin growls deep in his throat in answer to Levi’s faint moans. _Yes,_ his growl seems to say as Erwin takes full possession of Levi’s mouth, kissing him harder as Levi opens up to him.

“Yes.” Erwin breaks the kiss long enough to hiss out the word as Levi’s hands wander down his chest before they slip inside his shirt.

Levi has lost, just as he knows he will, and he doesn’t care at all, just as he knows he won’t. Still, he whispers, “can I trust you, Erwin?”

Somehow he knows the answer even before Erwin replies, “always. Always, my Levi.”

He lets himself go just as Erwin does. They lay on their sides, facing each other, their mouths occasionally touching in gentle, light kisses as they caress and explore with bold hands the planes and angles and textures of each other’s bodies, familiar yet intoxicatingly new beneath their fingertips.

 _“Levi.”_ Erwin’s breath is harsh against his ear as Levi dips a hand down into his shorts to feel his hardness. He strokes at Erwin and hears his name reduced to an incoherent moan.

“Fuck, you’re huge,” whispers Levi as Erwin helps him pull down his shorts and underwear. He draws out Erwin’s gorgeous prick, massive and hard and quivering in his hand.

“You too,” says Erwin, shaking his head as Levi flinches under his touch before he gives in to Erwin’s questing fingers.

“You’re so beautiful,” Erwin murmurs as his hand closes easily around Levi’s shaft and Levi has to bite back a moan. “Don’t keep it in. I want to hear you. Please.”

It happens without any conscious design at first, the way they touch each other, but Levi supposes it is inevitable that they will come together this way. Erwin lets him take them in hand, thrusting into Levi’s closed fist and feeling their hard flesh rubbing against each other. The friction is delicious and soon they have established a rhythm. Erwin brings his arms around Levi, enclosing him in a tight embrace, mouths fused as they thrust against each other, their movements growing more frenzied. They come long and hard, making a glorious mess along the way.

Levi resurfaces to feel Erwin’s hand carding through his hair, lips soft against his face.

“Fuck,” he says succinctly.

“Amen,” Erwin solemnly agrees, lifting Levi’s hand to take in their scent and lick at his fingers. “I’ve never done this before, Levi. Have we—?”

Levi shakes his head. “First time for us, ever,” he says. “Back then there was not enough time to do everything we wanted. We only had a few hours of a single night.”

Erwin’s gaze is wistful as he looks at Levi. “I wish I can remember,” he says.

Levi closes his eyes, pained. “No,” he says. “Promise me you won’t even try.”

“Levi—”

_“Promise me.”_

They fall silent for a moment, though Erwin does not stop his gentle motions through Levi’s hair. Finally, he drops a kiss on Levi’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Levi turns to him and says morosely, “Idiot. What have you to be sorry for? It’s not you. It’s…”

He swallows before he tries again. “I will tell you about the past as much as I can, when the right moments come, but there will be details which I will never divulge. You’ll just have to trust me when I say it’s for your own good.”

“All right,” replies Erwin. “All right, Levi.”

Levi lays back on his pillow. He sighs, then asks, “what would you like to know? I can handle just one question for now.”

Erwin perks up immediately. He props his head up with one hand as he surveys Levi with bright, inquisitive eyes. “Then tell me how we met,” he says.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Notes:** This chapter can stand on its own as the last one for the story, but I can't resist an epilogue! Thank you so much for reading and being a part of the happy experience that I've had in writing this fic. 

Please mind the tags as always. Enjoy!

* * *

Erwin does not know what to make of the story Levi tells him. That much is clear in his gaze, but it is already nearing lunchtime and hunger finally drives them out of bed before Erwin can ask too many questions.

They make their way to the kitchen. Levi makes Erwin sit down at the small dining table while he starts a light lunch but the man can’t seem to leave him alone. A minute or two later, Erwin comes up right behind him and twines long arms around Levi’s body in a loose embrace while he peers down with curiosity at what Levi is preparing.

“What‘s with all this touching?” Levi complains, though he does not shove Erwin away. “How am I supposed to get anything done?”

Erwin merely hums behind him, a low vibration running from his body to Levi’s. “I figure we never touched very much in the past, did we?” he asks.

The way Erwin talks about it, their past lives might have happened just yesterday.

“No,” Levi says after a short pause. “Except for that final night, we almost never did. Certainly not intentionally.”

He feels Erwin’s arms tighten a fraction around him. “And you’re definitely not the touchy or clingy type,” Levi adds. “What gives?”

When Erwin speaks, his voice is very low, “well, we have a lot to make up for. At least, I do.”

Levi snorts. “Why? Because of how you recruited me into the Corps? You did what you had to do.”

“Well, there was that,” says Erwin as he noses gently through Levi’s hair. “Though it really wasn’t very nice of me.”

“And I was planning to get in any way I could just so I could kill you,” returns Levi. “So I suppose we can call it even. Anyway, as first meetings go, it was… pretty cool.”

He hears Erwin’s smile in his voice as he says, “Was it, now?”

Levi shrugs and says, “I can’t believe I’m defending your actions.”

A thought suddenly hits him and he finally turns his head around suspiciously to see Erwin smiling broadly at him. “Fuck, you planned that, didn’t you?” says Levi accusingly. “You were fishing!”

Erwin laughs. “Not at all,” he says. “But I’m touched, Levi. I was very lucky to have had you as my right-hand man in the past. Imagine what the chances are that I would find you once again in this life.”

Levi feels his face flushing and turns away. “So now what?” he says. “We have no Survey Corps this time around, no humanity to save from Titans. We live half a world away from each other. We have absolutely nothing in common.”

Erwin’s arms tighten around him further. “That’s where you’re wrong, Levi,” he says gently. “We have each other again, and something we don’t have before.”

“What?”

“Freedom,” Erwin answers. “Now we can finally get to live our lives the way we want; the way it was denied us before.”

“How?” Levi asks softly, too afraid to voice out the hope stirring wildly inside him.

“We’ll think of a way, just like always.” Erwin says. “Do you think I’d let you go, now that I’ve found you again?”

* * *

 

After lunch, they go back to Erwin’s hotel so that he can pack his bags and check out.

Levi looks around bemusedly at the sumptuous interiors of Erwin’s room for a few minutes before he turns his attention to the way the man is packing.

“What the hell are you doing?” he cries, marching over to Erwin’s side to peer, horrified, at the jumble of clothes that Erwin has haphazardly thrown into his luggage.

Erwin merely shrugs, smiling. “We’re going to unpack it all over again anyway at your place,” he says.

Levi shoos him away as he dumps Erwin’s rumpled clothes back on the bed. He tries to hide his glee as he sorts through and begins to fold the clothes neatly, one by one.

Chuckling, Erwin leaves him to it as he moves away to open his laptop and begins to check his email, taking advantage of the hotel’s wi-fi service.

Levi looks up sharply when he hears the ringing from Erwin’s laptop. Erwin merely glances up to say, “she’s awake.”

Before Levi can think to ask who it is, the familiar voice floods the room, loud and cheery as Levi always remembered: “Hey, Erwin.”

“Hi, Hange,” says Erwin. “Sorry to be calling so early. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

She is still chattering excitedly when Erwin turns the laptop onto Levi. There is no mistaking that unruly mass of brown hair and the wide, sparkling eyes behind the glasses, even though Levi is technically seeing her for the first time in this life.

“Shit! Hange!”

“And helloooo to you, too, Levi,” says Hange, grinning.

“I knew it,” Erwin mutters. “So you knew all along, Hange, and never bothered to tell me.”

“If you spent your entire adolescence in therapy for jabbing away about a past life involving man-eating giants, you wouldn’t either, Erwin,” replies Hange archly. “And there I thought you knew all about my psychiatric history and decided to take a chance by hiring me anyway.”

Erwin blows out a gusty sigh. “I didn’t realize your history could have led us to all of this,” he says. “Otherwise, I would have insisted on knowing everything much sooner.”

Hange’s only reply is a huge, cheeky smile before she turns her attention to Levi. “So when are you coming to Montreal?” she asks point-blank.

Levi gives a soft _tch_. “We haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” he says.

Hange turns her attention back to Erwin: “Well, he’s coming, isn’t he, Erwin?”

“Definitely,” says Erwin, and Levi has to look away, his face growing very warm.

“I don’t have a visa,” he grumbles.

It’s like water off a duck’s back as Erwin readily replies, “then we’ll get you one as soon as possible. Today, this very afternoon.”

Levi shakes his head and turns back to Hange. They talk just like they always did— a push and pull of sorts, with only Hange’s expression betraying her inner emotions.

“She looked that way when I was interviewing her for a position in the company, and again when Moblit applied to be her secretary,” Erwin remarks to Levi when she finally ends their chat to begin her workday. “She looked ready to cry and laugh at the same time. It freaked us out a bit.”

Levi snorts. “I can imagine,” he says dryly. “Yet you took her on.”

“There was no question that Hange was perfect for the job, and over time, she proved to be an invaluable friend.” Here Erwin pauses before he continues, “she’s just like Mike and Nanaba. I didn’t know it then, but from the moment I met them they felt like pieces of a puzzle slotting perfectly into place. Just like how I felt about your door, about you.”

Levi looks down at Erwin’s shirt that he is clutching in his hands and clears his throat. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been good at these things. Erwin spares him the trouble of answering by walking up to him and placing gentle fingers on his chin, tilting his head up a bit.

“I’m never letting you go, Levi,” Erwin says, as though he knows all along what Levi is thinking.

* * *

 

True to his word, Erwin immediately sets the ball rolling on Levi’s visa. It takes only an hour’s online work for him to gather the requirements and have Levi sign the necessary forms. Before the afternoon is done, Erwin has secured an appointment for Levi to show up at the Canadian embassy in Tanzania to file his application.

They have a couple of hours to burn before dinner, so Levi takes Erwin to the seafront to watch the sunset.

It is the weekend, and there is a crowd of people lining the shore, families and friends chattering and enjoying the beach and the dramatic colors of the darkening sky. Delighted, Erwin wastes no time in removing his shoes and wading shin-deep into the cool, foaming waters. He turns back to Levi and grins. “Is this your way of thanking me for this afternoon?” he teases.

Arms crossed rather defensively over his chest, Levi merely gives a small, non-committal grunt and a shrug, embarrassed at having Erwin read him so easily once again.

“Come here, you,” Erwin calls, stretching out a hand for Levi as he stands just on the edge of the waves. Levi freezes for a moment, staring at Erwin before he turns his gaze pointedly to the other people a few feet away. He wonders if Erwin will understand that Zanzibar is not like Canada in this respect. There cannot be any display of affection between them while they are out and about in Zanzibar. Yet Erwin gets it. He gets it immediately and he lets his hand drop to his side.

As a concession, Levi removes his shoes and gingerly wades into the water. He dislikes the feel of the sand sticking to his toes but he has to admit the water is not bad at all. He stands beside Erwin, listening to the sound of the waves and breathing in the fresh air, clean and tangy with salt.

“I’ve always loved the sea,” says Erwin. “I don’t know when it started, but I couldn’t get enough of it, even as a child. Especially as a child. Does that make any sense?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Levi says.

He does not tell Erwin how he himself feels about the sea, how useless it felt for him to stand before the shimmering water for the first time in his previous life. It was disconcerting to find himself adrift, aimless. Even as the younger soldiers splashed around and Hange was nearby, he’d never felt so alone and utterly bereft as by that time, the reason for getting to see the ocean no longer existed for him. All he'd felt was suspicion for the vast emptiness stretching out before him-- a watery void of nothing. The feeling has continued to dog him to the present day, even while he was with Farlan and Isabel. Standing in the water as he stared off into the far horizon, he felt cast off, marooned in the middle of nowhere.

Now, everything has changed, and all because of the man standing beside him.

Erwin turns to him, and in that moment in the gorgeous, fading light of day, with Erwin’s eyes as blue as the waters stretching out before them, seemingly infinite, Levi senses that old feeling once again that anything is possible.

“Let’s go home,” he says.

The smile that Erwin gives him is very soft. “I am home,” he answers.

* * *

 

Levi takes Erwin back to his house and once the door is shut behind them, they slip into their own little world.

After dinner, with the rest of the evening in their hands, they make love slowly, keeping the growing urgency between them at bay as they leisurely explore each other’s bodies. Erwin is very good with his mouth and his hands, but Levi can still sense his uncertainty in making love to a man. This is Erwin’s first time, after all.

“My one and only time,” Erwin corrects him when he says it out loud. Then, “I’m afraid I might hurt you.”

“No, you won’t,” says Levi, “and, if it helps, I’ve never really had anyone before you.”

Erwin goes still as he regards Levi with bright, inquisitive eyes. “That I don’t believe,” he finally says.

“Why the hell not?”

“Well…” Erwin’s voice trails away in embarrassed silence. Finally, spurred on by Levi’s raised brow and flat expression, he says, in a rushed tone, “you’ve got condoms and lube in your bedside table. And…and this is going to sound stupid now, but initially, I thought Farlan was your boyfriend.”

When Levi bursts out laughing, Erwin continues a bit defensively, “well, you certainly seemed to know what you’re doing when we made love.”

Levi, still snickering, jerks his head toward his bedside table. “Get the stuff, then,” he says. “I’ll show you a thing or two.”

He watches Erwin as he gets up to open the drawer, the stunned expression that crosses Erwin’s features when he finally sees the thing housed inside.

“Oh,” says Erwin. _“Oh…”_

Slowly, with a grin spreading on his face, he takes out a sizeable dildo from the drawer. “Oh, _Levi.”_

It does not take long for the second realization to dawn on Erwin. “Oh shit, it’s just my size, too,” he says as he places the toy right beside the real thing for comparison. He gazes at Levi with a look of pure wonder. “Oh my god, Levi, you really do know me, don’t you?”

“Shut up.” Levi sits up and grabs at the toy before Erwin can think to say more embarrassing things.

Erwin grins and he sits down at the edge of the bed, his rapt attention on Levi as he sheaths the dildo with a condom and drizzles a bit of lube on it.

“Careful we don’t waste it,” Levi mutters. “That’s the last bottle I have and it won’t be easy to get another one anytime soon.”

He ignores the slightly appalled look on Erwin’s face and settles back down on the heap of pillows as he spreads his legs and slides the dildo gently against his stiffening prick. “Hmmm,” he breathes as he slowly gets into the mood.

“Tell me how it feels, Levi.” Erwin’s voice has deepened a notch or two.

“Good,” whispers Levi. “You feel good, Erwin.”

Erwin moves closer and trails light fingertips over Levi’s chest, his gaze very fond as he watches Levi play with himself, clutching the toy with one hand while he slowly dips into himself with the lube-coated fingers of another.

“I imagine you here at night, the things you do to me, the things I can do to you,” says Levi and Erwin just hums. Levi sighs out loud as Erwin moves to circle his nipples with light fingers.

“God, you’re so sensitive,” murmurs Erwin as he watches Levi add another finger in.

“Here,” says Levi as he guides Erwin’s hand down to replace his fingers with his.

“You’re so tight, so hot,” murmurs Erwin as Levi gasps softly.

When he is ready, Levi lets Erwin withdraw his fingers and watch as he slides the dildo into himself. “Fuck, you’re huge, Erwin,” he breathes out as he starts a slow, steady motion, pumping the dildo in and out of himself.

Levi arches his back, crying out softly as he feels Erwin’s hand closing on his hard prick. He circles the huge fist in his own, showing Erwin how he likes to be touched. Erwin learns very quickly and he watches as Levi gradually finds his rhythm. The combined feel of Erwin’s firm fingers on his prick and the hardness pumping inside him quickly spirals into something uncontrollable.

“Fuck, I’m coming,” Levi gasps and he suddenly feels the dildo being pulled out, to be replaced by Erwin’s sheathed cock, thicker and harder. He cries out as Erwin grounds into him, his breathing coming out in hot, heavy pants. Erwin feels perfect inside him, filling him, touching off that sweet spot inside him with each powerful surge even as he feels Erwin’s fingers wrapped around his length, stroking him. The pleasure spikes and Levi arches and comes with a shout, surrendering to the tides of orgasm that rock their bodies as Erwin moans and shudders against him.

As the last wave ebbs away, they lay spent, limbs still loosely entwined, the dildo all but forgotten between them. Levi feels the slickness oozing out of him and cum dripping from his chest, but he does not bother to get up and wash. This, he thinks, is one sure indication that he is head over heels in love.

He watches as Erwin moves to dispose of the condom before he settles back in bed, gathering Levi into his arms.

“That was amazing,” says Erwin as he breathes out laughter. “I can’t believe you’re enjoying yourself this much every night. I’m very jealous.”

“Not every night,” mutters Levi. “Some nights I don’t sleep at all.”

Erwin caresses him gently. “Why?”

“Nightmares,” Levi answers glumly. “Memories of the past are much more vivid when they come in my dreams, so sometimes it’s better to stay awake.”

There is a pause as Erwin strokes his hair soothingly. “I almost forgot to ask,” he says. “Did we win in the end?”

“I don’t know,” says Levi as he closes his eyes. “I didn’t live to see it.”

“Levi…”

“I came back for you, though. Before the final war in Erudia, across the sea,” says Levi as he watches Erwin trail gentle fingertips up and down his arm. “We left you behind. We had to, in order to secure Wall Maria. By the time I came back, you were…”

“Hmm?”

“I came back for your bones,” whispers Levi. “By that time they were all that was left of you, on that bed in that attic.”

He cannot continue; his throat has closed. He is afraid he might just break down and cry. All the while, Erwin continues to the stare at him thoughtfully. After a longish pause, Erwin says, “Well. That just goes to show.”

“Show what?” Levi asks. Erwin doesn’t seem upset, merely distracted.

“It just goes to show you do know me inside out. Oouch… _Oww!_ Levi, that hurts!”

“Will you be fucking serious for once?” Levi hisses as Erwin doubles over from where he has elbowed him in the ribs, hard. All the while, Erwin is laughing, a little breathless.

It is a joyous sound, a reminder that Erwin is alive and well now, in this life. It thrills Levi no end to hear Erwin laugh.

“You’re such a dumbass,” he remarks, though he cannot help the smile that flits across his lips.

“Seriously though,” says Erwin once the laughter has died down. “Thank you, Levi, for bringing me out of that wretched world. I don’t think I would have wanted to survive all that.”

As Levi stares at him, dumbstruck, Erwin continues, “Please tell me that I was able to thank you properly in our previous lives, at least.”

It takes a moment for Levi to respond, and when he does there is just the slightest hint of a tremor in his voice. “You did,” he says.

* * *

 **More Author's Notes:** It is fact that Zanzibar, as part of Tanzania, still [punishes homosexuality. ](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41292920)


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Notes:** Oh, my goodness! And we are almost done! Thank you so much for reading and commenting and sharing this awesome journey with me! My special thanks go to my dear friend, **PlumpPushu,** without whose RL story this tale would not have come into being. Thank you for the great friendship and stories, my dear! You are an inspiration!

This was supposed to be the epilogue, but I've added a new chapter that will serve as a better ending. For updates on my other stories, please visit/follow me on [my tumblr!](http://blue-sonnet.tumblr.com/)

* * *

Levi lands in Canada in darkness.

From his airplane window, the lights of Montreal are like magnificent strings of jewels set in dark velvet– an impressive spread. He can’t believe he’s finally here.

The preparations for his journey took two months. It’s been two months since he’s been with Erwin and he misses him like fuck. Of course, they skyped almost every night but it’s not the same, and Erwin was insistent on behaving properly while they chatted online, for Levi’s own sake, which meant there could be no serious hanky-panky between them. They couldn’t even really flirt.

“Soon,” Erwin said with a mischievous glint in those blue eyes before Levi left for the airport in Zanzibar to begin his trip halfway around the world. It felt like forever, but as promised, Erwin is here now in the airport in Montreal to meet him as soon as he steps out of customs, luggage in tow. Erwin, in his dark overcoat and slicked back hair, obviously fresh from the office. Gorgeous Erwin with a big, silly grin plastered on his face. Erwin, his _boyfriend_ , for god’s sake.

 _His_ Erwin.

Levi still cannot get used to the idea of calling him that.

“Levi.”

Erwin quickly steps up to him and before he knows it, Levi is engulfed in a tight hug. Instantly, he feels whole again, all doubts forgotten.

Erwin’s embrace lasts for an embarrassingly long time, and Levi savors it. He savors the freedom of coming here, finally arriving in Erwin’s arms after months apart. He savors the knowledge that they can touch and hug in a place without anyone so much as batting an eyelash at their direction.

Erwin’s voice is a rough rumble deep in his chest when he says, “God, I missed you, Levi.”

In answer, Levi merely tightens his grip on Erwin’s coat as he buries his head against the warm, reassuring solidness of Erwin’s chest.

 _Home_ , he thinks. _I’m finally home._

Erwin kisses him, too. He tilts Levi’s chin up and covers his lips with his own. They lose themselves in the kiss, too impatient to wait until they get home. They stand there, in full view of people going about their business in a busy airport, with Erwin’s tongue inside Levi’s mouth, and Levi does not care at all. He revels in Erwin’s hunger that mirrors his own.

The drive back to Erwin’s place is more sedate. Erwin focuses on the road, though he can’t help the small jerk of awareness when Levi, grinning wickedly, deliberately slides a hand along his thigh. He gets bolder when they finally arrive at Erwin’s place. He barely takes note of his surroundings before he is leaning into Erwin for another kiss as he places a hand on Erwin’s crotch, his intention obvious.

Erwin laughs softly into Levi’s mouth. “Later,” he says. “Right now you need to eat something, and to sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” Levi protests, but it is a lie. He is groggy and jetlagged as hell, he can barely stand upright.

Erwin serves him a delicious, thick cream soup and crackers after he refuses anything heavier. Afterward, he is tumbled into a bed so wide and soft and deep, it is all Levi can do not to snuggle down and fall asleep immediately.

“Promise me this isn’t a dream,” he says to Erwin as he is being tucked into a soft, warm duvet.

“You’re still awake, Levi,” Erwin points out, grinning mischievously before he bends down to kiss him.

Levi sleeps hard for five hours and suddenly jerks awake when he feels the mattress dip. He can feel Erwin settling in beside him, his movements slow and careful so as not to wake him.

“Sorry,” Erwin begins but Levi shakes his head.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“Almost midnight,” Erwin replies. “You ought to sleep through the night so you can adjust more quickly to the time difference.”

Fully awake now, Levi merely shrugs. Then he looks more closely at Erwin. “What are you wearing?”

“Oh.” Erwin looks down at his grey sweater and sleeping pants.

Levi clarifies: “ _Why_ are you even wearing that?”

“Well…”

“And what were you planning to do?” demands Levi as he eyes in disbelief the book that Erwin is holding.

Erwin affects a wide-eyed, innocent look. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”

“You’re wrong,” says Levi, already climbing onto Erwin’s lap.

He kisses Erwin lingeringly, lowering his hips so he can grind against him. It feels good. He can already feel Erwin hardening through their clothes.

“Tell me you don’t miss that,” he says.

“You know I can’t,” Erwin sighs as he brings a hand to Levi’s nape, pulling him down to deepen their kiss. With his other hand, he works on the zipper of Levi’s jeans, sliding his long fingers in to tease Levi through his briefs before pulling the stiff denim down and stripping it off him completely. With shaking hands, Levi helps Erwin with his sweater and pants, an easier task.

With Erwin completely naked, Levi feels a change in him, as though he has also stripped off that layer of admirable resolve he has exhibited earlier. Grinning wolf-like, Erwin lunges and grabs at Levi, pinning him down with his hard body in full contact with Levi’s.

“Is this what you want, Levi?” Erwin all but growls.

“You know I do, Blondie,” says Levi.

Erwin gives a soft chuckle at Levi’s nickname for him and whispers against his mouth, “I want this, too. But first…”

Levi blinks, his arms feeling suddenly empty and bereft as Erwin sits up and bounds away to sift through his night table. _Lube_ , he thinks hazily, and he is right, but there is something more. Erwin returns soon enough, tossing a full bottle of lube on the bed and flourishing a piece of paper before Levi.

“I got myself tested,” says Erwin as Levi peers at the paper that Erwin is holding in front of him proudly, like a diploma. “I’m clean.”

It takes a moment for the implications to sink in. “Okay,” says Levi slowly. “Well, shit. I didn’t…but if it means anything, I’ve only ever been with you.”

“I know, Levi,” says Erwin, grinning affectionately.

He grabs at Levi again, his movements confident and self-assured. They kiss, hot and messy. Levi moans as he feels Erwin’s naked cock, rock hard and leaking moisture, sliding against his. The friction is delicious, and not nearly enough.

“I want you inside me,” Levi gasps.

Erwin shakes his head at him. “After I’ve opened you up sufficiently.”

“You do that,” says Levi as he slides down to straddle Erwin upside down and take his cock into his mouth.

Levi expects Erwin to use his fingers; what he does not expect is Erwin’s tongue, delicately circling his rim before he starts to lap at him with a teasing, fluttering movement.

Levi cries out, “Shit! Where did you learn that?”

Erwin laughs. “Let’s just say I’ve done my research.”

“Fuck, you mean you’ve been watching _porn?”_

“And taking notes, I might add.”

Levi wants to laugh, but instead he moans as he feels Erwin’s tongue, hardened to a point, spearing into him. He bucks against him, urging Erwin on. It feels too good. He licks at Erwin’s throbbing prick teasingly until at last, he feels Erwin’s fingers, slick with lubrication, sliding into him and pumping in and out gently.

“That’s it, Levi,” he hears Erwin say in a low growl. “Open up for me. Slowly. Take all the time you need.”

 Levi moans as he takes Erwin deep in his throat, delighting in his harsh, uneven breathing even as Erwin continues to coax him open with his fingers. Levi knows it is time when he is finally able to accept three fingers from Erwin. With one last, lingering suck upward, he releases Erwin’s cock and turns around and lies back on the bed, lets Erwin hitch his legs up and back, spreading him wide open.

Still, Erwin takes his time as he teases Levi’s rim with his cock, coated with a generous amount of lube, rubbing it slowly back and forth before he presses into Levi’s body gently.

The feel of Erwin’s full, naked flesh inside him is different, and Levi hisses in a breath of astonishment.

Erwin immediately stops. “Am I hurting you?” he asks, concerned.

Levi shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Keep moving. You feel fucking amazing.”

With a grin, Erwin surges in. Their rhythm is rough and intense yet tempered with a deep-seated tenderness, and no matter how much Levi might want it, Erwin refuses to pick up the pace. He lets Levi feel every inch of him— all his love, his entire soul laid bare. They gaze at each other but do not speak. Words are flimsy and inadequate to describe their overwhelming feeling of waiting lifetimes for each other, two unique halves finally made whole in this lifetime, and so they choose to use their bodies to express this most honest and intimate of confessions: _I love you._

They come within moments of each other, unable to hold back as the floodgates break open against the inrushing tides of pleasure. Through it all, they hold each other, their bodies fused, seeming to become one being. Levi can feel Erwin filling him with his essence and he loves it, knowing this is the first time Erwin has ever shared himself to anyone like this.

Much later, when Levi feels like drifting off to sleep again, Erwin gives him the ring, nestled in its black velvet box.

“Sorry, I can’t hold back until the morning,” says Erwin, smiling and blushing as he takes in Levi’s wide-eyed look. The last time Levi has seen him blush was back in Zanzibar, when they met up with Farlan and Isabel for dinner one evening and Isabel asked them point blank if they’d slept together yet.

As Levi stares at the ring, dumbfounded, Erwin continues, “I think this is the perfect time. Marry me, Levi.”

“Is that an order, Commander?” Levi asks.

 _“Please,_ darling,” says Erwin, grinning.

Levi stretches out his hand. “Put it on me, then,” he says.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” replies Erwin as he moves quickly to comply.

In answer, Levi turns his head to kiss him softly. “Of course,” he says. “You idiot.”

Broken apart once, a lifetime ago, they have finally come full circle.

In the morning, Levi will wake up fully to Erwin’s world and meet Erwin’s friends, who were also his comrades in another life. Much later, they will make the trip to St John’s in Newfoundland to visit Erwin’s father, a retired professor of biology.  Farlan and Isabel will be coming for a visit in a few months. There is so much to do, so much ahead of them; days and days of being together, and Levi cannot wait to savor every minute of it with Erwin.

But first, he basks in the luxury of settling down and nuzzling into the solid warmth of the gorgeous man he loves as they fall asleep in each other’s arms. 


	13. Epilogue

    

 **Author's notes:**  Oopsie! I can't resist! I think this would make for a better epilogue than the previous chapter. We have [Maino Merry's brilliant art](https://twitter.com/maino_merry/status/805197513661612032) (used with very kind permission) to account for it. XD

Please drop by [my tumblr](http://blue-sonnet.tumblr.com/) for more Eruri posts as well as updates on my other fics. Thank you!

* * *

He is starting to forget.

It is a relief that the memories gradually recede, though Levi can do nothing about his dreams. Sometimes they are still vivid, enough to awaken him, gasping, flinging, lunging from the grasp of giant hands about to crush the life out of him. Often enough, the dreams are wispy, smoky things that evaporate from his consciousness as soon as he wakes up, but they leave behind that sense of darkness, tainting his day. He cannot wait for the time when they are gone entirely.

Today he wakes up to that sense of almost remembering a nightmare, but he blinks and finds himself in their bedroom that is awash in clean, early morning daylight. He is enveloped in white sheets, as well as warm, well-muscled arms.

To Levi, the arms around him feel the most real. Both of them.

Erwin is awake beside him, and he turns wordlessly to his husband, burying his face against his chest. Mercifully, the dream fades from his mind entirely as he tilts his face up to receive his first kiss for the day.

He opens his eyes to find Erwin smiling at him fondly-- that sleepy, morning smile reserved only for him, bestowed upon him and him alone every morning of everyday they've been together, and it's been years now. Levi finds he cannot get enough if it; nor for that matter enough of Erwin.

"Good morning," says Erwin.

 _And there it is_ , thinks Levi. Even without their special, shared history, even if they've met entirely for the first time in this life, Levi knows he's found him. He's found The One, just by Erwin saying _good morning_ the same way he says _I love you._

Their journey, past and present, is complete.


End file.
